How ridiculous. If parents are so concerned about contents of other kid’s lunchboxes then put your money where your mouth is and donate to Kidscan.
On a lighter note when my daughter first started school her yoghurt always came back end of day unopened. This went on for several weeks until I discovered why - she misheard me and thought it was poisonberry yoghurt, not boysenberry. So forget lollies or chips, my child thought I was trying to kill her with her lunchbox.
Again, so important to discuss. I lived with food scarcity and shame my whole life. Which meant going back and forth between disordered eating. My family never cooked. I never had vegetables as a kid. Outside of canned peas and carrots.
I'm 33 and I have only been eating fresh vegetables for THREE years. Thats it!!! I had never tried parsnips, radish, leeks, carrots, anything.
I was told my whole life I was just being overly picky. And as a adult it was really weird that I refused to eat soooo many foods.
Guess what! Last year I found out I'm autistic! And suddenly all the food issues made sense.
Now, I try and go easy on myself. I eat snacks. And I only focus on my five or so foods that I can enjoy. I'm sitting here eating carrots, pretzels and a fruit cup for lunch.
The issue is not and has never been WHATS in the lunchbox. It's about how can we create healthy relationships with food when kids are young? How can we ensure every child (and adult) gets enough to eat?
If I'm actually able to feed myself things that make me happy, Quinoa's mum can fuck entirely off for shaming me for a plastic fruit cup
Re: packaging - it's insane that end-users are expected to make "conscious choices" about packaging. Practically everything comes in a bit of plastic, even fruit and veg. I've had 2 of my kids in school "enviro council" groups where this was the main focus... and probably one source of lunchbox shaming as they tried to "educate" their friends on this issue. No plastic in the lunchbox probably means quite a lot is left in the bin at home before being wrapped in an organic cotton beeswax wrap. We are a pretty eco family but even trying quite hard most of our rubbish is food packaging. Getting rid of single-use bags was great - if the govt can ban unnecessary produce packaging next this would help consumers a lot.
All I can say is making our kids a good example to others and not being judgmental people. I got shamed this morning by a teacher who asks every day how kids got to school. I have 4 children to drop in 3 places, it's not possible to walk/scooter/ride everyday.
This has helped me make peace with the fact that I can finally stop wasting food by putting bloody decorative fruit and vegetables into my son's lunchbox just so that other parents/kaiako don't judge me. Thank you.
The gourmet beautiful healthy creative lunchboxes being provided to preschoolers has been blowing my mind and making me feel woefully inadequate. I'm just so sure this wasn't a thing when we were kids. I mean good for you if you love to do it, but it feels like most people are probably like me - trying to keep up appearances in this sea of amazing lunches.
… to clarify… yes I agree we should reduce waste where we can. But it makes me enraged when people pile blame on individuals for choices like this and ignore the corporate and economic structures that protect the most damaging activities
I LOVE your last sentence: if they've got time to shame, they should use it to make sandwiches. Put it on a banner, make it a meme, whatever. My oldest would for a very long time ONLY eat nutella sandwiches and Watties chicken & noodle pureed food ( can you imagine the looks at lunch time at primary school??!!) I told everyone, even before anyone would say anything, that I had spoken with a nutritionist from the hospital (which I had) and it was ok. Never got any comments after that and now I've got a relatively healthy (T1) who's happy to cook and eat diverse foods. I absolutely admire your tenacity to go out and fight that fight! Strong vibes coming your way. <3
I love this. People need to mind their own bloody business! My Hattie loathes fruit and lives on carbs, which is reflected in her lunchbox. Joe is ASD and just likes what he likes. And I’m really busy with work and whatnot, and have zero energy to stress about this stuff.
I had an epiphany a couple of years ago and decided to combat food waste by removing the array of fruits and healthy snacks that never got eaten from lunchbox offerings. My conscience is now clear and lunches now take about 1% of their former prep time 🙌
My kids daycare has this thing where they collect up all the wrappers out of lunchboxes, take a photo and do a collective parent shame every so often. Of course it doesn’t reduce the packaging it just frightens the parents into removing the individual packets before going into the lunchbox so that you appear to comply.
#imguiltyoflunchboxfraud
And then there was the whole debacle over the guidelines on the correct way to chop and prepare food for preschoolers that the govt issued recently. Next we’ll be chopping up water. Enough stupidity. Parents are exhausted!
I'm torn on this because I was one of those autistic kids (diagnosed ten years ago, age 32!) with massive food restriction issues, but at the same time, I'm now convinced the foods I wanted to eat made my problems much worse. Now that I have cut my "preferred foods" out of my diet completely, I'm less obsessive, more social, less triggered by sensory things and less anxious. But while I think many kids could benefit hugely from more nutritious foods, I highly doubt that will be achieved by middle class nutrition guilting and school lunch box surveillance. I dream of a world where nobody comments on what anyone else eats or doesn't eat.
Emily will the 'lunches in schools' program help reduce lunchbox shaming? Side note: my Mum was recently let go at a wee country school where she was the beloved lunch lady (huge selection of cooked and baked food) due to the introduction of this program. She is happy for the kids but worries about overall waste and hunger due to kids not having a choice in what they're eating.
My kids kindy called gladwrap “sad wrap”. Then they used it in their kitchen 🙄 My kids are now at primary school and they aren’t allowed to share their food, I guess because of allergies but at some point kids are old enough to know what they can safely eat. I have one very picky child and lunch boxes are a daily battle, can’t wait for lunch to be provided in all schools, no more arguing and no more washing lunches boxes and little containers, and of course food for otherwise hungry kids.
How ridiculous. If parents are so concerned about contents of other kid’s lunchboxes then put your money where your mouth is and donate to Kidscan.
On a lighter note when my daughter first started school her yoghurt always came back end of day unopened. This went on for several weeks until I discovered why - she misheard me and thought it was poisonberry yoghurt, not boysenberry. So forget lollies or chips, my child thought I was trying to kill her with her lunchbox.
😂😂😂
Again, so important to discuss. I lived with food scarcity and shame my whole life. Which meant going back and forth between disordered eating. My family never cooked. I never had vegetables as a kid. Outside of canned peas and carrots.
I'm 33 and I have only been eating fresh vegetables for THREE years. Thats it!!! I had never tried parsnips, radish, leeks, carrots, anything.
I was told my whole life I was just being overly picky. And as a adult it was really weird that I refused to eat soooo many foods.
Guess what! Last year I found out I'm autistic! And suddenly all the food issues made sense.
Now, I try and go easy on myself. I eat snacks. And I only focus on my five or so foods that I can enjoy. I'm sitting here eating carrots, pretzels and a fruit cup for lunch.
The issue is not and has never been WHATS in the lunchbox. It's about how can we create healthy relationships with food when kids are young? How can we ensure every child (and adult) gets enough to eat?
If I'm actually able to feed myself things that make me happy, Quinoa's mum can fuck entirely off for shaming me for a plastic fruit cup
Yes absolutely this!
Re: packaging - it's insane that end-users are expected to make "conscious choices" about packaging. Practically everything comes in a bit of plastic, even fruit and veg. I've had 2 of my kids in school "enviro council" groups where this was the main focus... and probably one source of lunchbox shaming as they tried to "educate" their friends on this issue. No plastic in the lunchbox probably means quite a lot is left in the bin at home before being wrapped in an organic cotton beeswax wrap. We are a pretty eco family but even trying quite hard most of our rubbish is food packaging. Getting rid of single-use bags was great - if the govt can ban unnecessary produce packaging next this would help consumers a lot.
All I can say is making our kids a good example to others and not being judgmental people. I got shamed this morning by a teacher who asks every day how kids got to school. I have 4 children to drop in 3 places, it's not possible to walk/scooter/ride everyday.
Wow amazing Mama managing to coordinate that every morning!
This has helped me make peace with the fact that I can finally stop wasting food by putting bloody decorative fruit and vegetables into my son's lunchbox just so that other parents/kaiako don't judge me. Thank you.
The gourmet beautiful healthy creative lunchboxes being provided to preschoolers has been blowing my mind and making me feel woefully inadequate. I'm just so sure this wasn't a thing when we were kids. I mean good for you if you love to do it, but it feels like most people are probably like me - trying to keep up appearances in this sea of amazing lunches.
The earth’s climate is not collapsing because of your kid’s juice box or prepackaged chippies. Shit like this makes me so mad
… to clarify… yes I agree we should reduce waste where we can. But it makes me enraged when people pile blame on individuals for choices like this and ignore the corporate and economic structures that protect the most damaging activities
💯💯💯💯💯💯
I LOVE your last sentence: if they've got time to shame, they should use it to make sandwiches. Put it on a banner, make it a meme, whatever. My oldest would for a very long time ONLY eat nutella sandwiches and Watties chicken & noodle pureed food ( can you imagine the looks at lunch time at primary school??!!) I told everyone, even before anyone would say anything, that I had spoken with a nutritionist from the hospital (which I had) and it was ok. Never got any comments after that and now I've got a relatively healthy (T1) who's happy to cook and eat diverse foods. I absolutely admire your tenacity to go out and fight that fight! Strong vibes coming your way. <3
I love this. People need to mind their own bloody business! My Hattie loathes fruit and lives on carbs, which is reflected in her lunchbox. Joe is ASD and just likes what he likes. And I’m really busy with work and whatnot, and have zero energy to stress about this stuff.
I had an epiphany a couple of years ago and decided to combat food waste by removing the array of fruits and healthy snacks that never got eaten from lunchbox offerings. My conscience is now clear and lunches now take about 1% of their former prep time 🙌
My kids daycare has this thing where they collect up all the wrappers out of lunchboxes, take a photo and do a collective parent shame every so often. Of course it doesn’t reduce the packaging it just frightens the parents into removing the individual packets before going into the lunchbox so that you appear to comply.
#imguiltyoflunchboxfraud
And then there was the whole debacle over the guidelines on the correct way to chop and prepare food for preschoolers that the govt issued recently. Next we’ll be chopping up water. Enough stupidity. Parents are exhausted!
I'm torn on this because I was one of those autistic kids (diagnosed ten years ago, age 32!) with massive food restriction issues, but at the same time, I'm now convinced the foods I wanted to eat made my problems much worse. Now that I have cut my "preferred foods" out of my diet completely, I'm less obsessive, more social, less triggered by sensory things and less anxious. But while I think many kids could benefit hugely from more nutritious foods, I highly doubt that will be achieved by middle class nutrition guilting and school lunch box surveillance. I dream of a world where nobody comments on what anyone else eats or doesn't eat.
Emily will the 'lunches in schools' program help reduce lunchbox shaming? Side note: my Mum was recently let go at a wee country school where she was the beloved lunch lady (huge selection of cooked and baked food) due to the introduction of this program. She is happy for the kids but worries about overall waste and hunger due to kids not having a choice in what they're eating.
My kids kindy called gladwrap “sad wrap”. Then they used it in their kitchen 🙄 My kids are now at primary school and they aren’t allowed to share their food, I guess because of allergies but at some point kids are old enough to know what they can safely eat. I have one very picky child and lunch boxes are a daily battle, can’t wait for lunch to be provided in all schools, no more arguing and no more washing lunches boxes and little containers, and of course food for otherwise hungry kids.