It’s cheaper to send kids to school with healthy food than junk, writes Wendy Tuohy

HOW hard can it be, really, to send a child to school with something more nutritious for lunch than a bag of chips, asks Wendy Tuohy.

Is is that hard to pack a healthy lunch? File image: Braden Fastier

HOW hard can it be, really, to send a child to school with something more nutritious for lunch than a bag of chips?

A sandwich with a slice of cold meat, some grated cheese, carrot and lettuce would probably cost less, so you can’t blame lack of money for a choice to cut corners instead of a healthy lunch.

To hear there are parents who think lunch consists of something you find in a packet that’s mostly salt, carbs and fat must be extremely deflating for the public health experts who have been drumming the importance of childhood nutrition into us for more than a decade.

It’s junk parenting, and given we are lectured ad nauseam about nutrition, there’s no longer an excuse.

MORE: WOULD YOUR KIDS’ LUNCHES PASS THE HEALTHY TEST?

You wouldn’t have chips for lunch yourself, so why is it OK to send a growing child off with no more than that to sustain them.

We’re told by principals and teachers that many parents are quite happy to leave important parenting work such as manners and self-discipline to schools, but when schools try to remove junk from the canteen or give reminders about what’s expected food-wise parents can go postal.

Parents can’t have it both ways, and chances are their own parents did a more diligent job of providing a good nutritional start for children.

Wendy Thuohy writes junk school lunches are a sign of junk parenting. File image: Tim Hunter.

The Herald Sun’s lunch box survey today turned up some good results, and it could have been a lot worse. But even children with healthy sandwiches were being sent with several items of highly processed, sugary or salty snack foods as staples.

Research by the bread maker Tip Top found in April that one in three kids will chuck their sandwich out, and others take a bite and then chuck it … so what are they getting by on? Presumably the “treats” that advertising has convinced us children need and even “good” for them. Rubbish.

It’s not entirely the parents’ fault that Australian kids are being reared on far more processed food than their parents ever ate; marketing about the health value of much processed food can mislead us into thinking it’s more nutritious than it is.

Marketing directly to kids for “fun” lunch box items is also prevalent and persuasive, and you cannot blame parents for yielding a bit and buying some of the single-serve, heavily processed and highly packaged “lunch box” foods.

But the basic requirements of a healthy lunch haven’t changed since you and I went to school, and lunch boxes should reflect that, not the fact that parents can now save on labour by packaging endless nutritionally crappy prepacked snacks.

We are all flat out, we’re running hard to stand still — working like mad to cover bills and other mounting expenses of raising children in Australia. That’s a given.

But there is no excuse for primary school children in this country to be fed poorly, or set up for a life of weight-battles. We are already the world’s fourth fattest country, according to the OECD.

The small amount of time, effort and planning needed to make children a decent and healthy lunch (and the strength to say ‘no’ to excessive garbage) will set them up for life and reduce the amount of your taxes flowing into to the ever-widening battle against obesity.

Get on it parents, it’s really not that hard.

[e-mail]