A Little of What They Fancy …

Last week Health Wales reported on how parents can add fruit and vegetables to their children’s lunch boxes. This week, nutritionist Dr Carrie Ruxton of the TV programme Honey, We’re Killing the Kids explains how children can eat crisps at lunchtime

IT IS a brand new term and children, armed with their gleaming Shrek lunch boxes stampede into the school dining room. Does your child’s lunch box contain rice cakes, cottage cheese, apricots and water, as recommended by the new government school food watchdog?

Or is it stuffed full of sweets, fizzy pop and a white bread sandwich thrown together as you rushed out of the door this morning?

While the cottage cheese option is guaranteed to cure parental guilt, it isn’t necessarily the only option for health.

With child obesity levels on the rise, parents are bombarded with diet messages from doctors, nutritionists and government health experts.

New lunch standards for schools, being introduced in parts of the UK this month, ban crisps, confectionery and even cereal bars. Flavoured water is out, as are fizzy drinks and processed meat.

Strict rules will shortly govern how much salt, sugar and fat lunches can contain. Parents should brace themselves for a raft of dos and don’ts from their local schools.

While it’s great to improve children’s diets, parents are left with the headache of persuading little Jade or Thomas to eat the fruit, vegetables, pitta bread, oily fish or brie, and banning favourite treats. Sticker charts can only go so far.

There is also a risk that strict new government guidelines set parents up for failure. Yes, we need to do more, but don’t parents know best about how to move their children’s diets in the right direction?

Surely pack lunches can be fun and tasty, as well as being healthy.

First, the bad news. Only one in 10 children eats the recommended five-a-day fruit and vegetables and intakes of saturated fats are too high. Fibre intakes could do with a boost, as could levels of iron, vitamin A and calcium.

The good news is that newspaper headlines claiming we’re all ruining our kids with junk food diets are not fair comment for most families.

Sure, we could do better in some areas but, in general, children are growing normally and are healthy. Plus, we shouldn’t forget regular physical activity which is life’s natural calorie burner and the safest way of managing weight in children.

So, how far do you need to go to provide your kids with a healthy diet? And how do pack lunches fit into this, given that busy parents are not blessed with time?

Starting with the essentials, children will benefit from more fruits, vegetables, wholegrains and low fat dairy foods. A small portion of crisps, confectionery and biscuits can be allowed on most days of the week but these foods shouldn’t dominate the diet (see the panel for my top tips for a healthy lunchbox).

On BBC3′s Honey We’re Killing the Kids, where I’m the nutrition expert, I always try to encourage a balance between the various categories of foods, with healthy foods making up the majority of children’s daily diets and a couple of favourite snacks or drinks providing interest.

Banning treat foods only increases their allure and can be counterproductive. However, portion sizes should be watched.

Some of the families I’ve worked with give their kids adult- sized portions of snacks and fizzy drinks and then wonder why the healthy meals are not eaten.

By following my tips for a common-sense pack lunch, you can tick all the health boxes without alienating your kids. The stricter option may well be healthier but could end up in the bin, or swapped for a toffee-covered cream bun in the school playground.

As we say in the nutrition world, healthy food is only any good if it is actually eaten. A common-sense approach to your child’s lunchbox is one step in the right direction.

Dr Carrie Ruxton is an independent nutritionist with an interest in how social class impacts on food choice. Her PhD was about children’s eating habits. She is the nutrition expert on BBC3′s Honey We’re Killing the Kids.

(c) 2007 Western Mail. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.