A parent recently contacted me:
I don’t know where to post this on The Lunch Tray, so I am writing directly to you. I have caved. I have a daughter who does not eat anything I give her for lunch (doesn’t eat sandwiches, lunch meat, has been returning the cheese sticks I give her, can’t eat eggs or peanut butter). I can get her to snack on an apple or some berries, but she ends up getting food from her friends (not great for a kid with food sensitivities), and it is usually junk. She is starving when she gets home and eats so much that she often does not eat dinner. So………….
……..I signed her up for school lunch. WITH the following caveats: MUST eat a nutritious breakfast (she is not a morning eater, so I am making her fruit smoothies with yogurt for protein and dairy), gets a snack that contains nutrition (fiber, protein), and also eats a nutritious dinner (I don’t do take-out or processed foods). It is a battle I feel I must lose so that I can win the war.
A part of me feels as if I am a traitor/failure. Yet I don’t want the lunch issue to ruin the rest of the day’s meals. Thoughts?
My feeling is that this reader shouldn’t beat herself up about this choice. In our efforts to improve school lunch, we don’t want to demonize the existing food beyond all reason. This is especially at the elementary level, where kids have far less freedom and can’t choose (as they can in Houston’s middle and high schools) things like slushies, pizza and breaded chicken sandwiches day after day.
I wrote:
The truth is, if she eats the school lunch, she’s getting relatively decent nutrition (in terms of nutrients) — it’s just that the foods may be more processed than you’d like, or less palatable than she’d like. But at least one study has shown that kids who regularly eat school lunch are actually doing better nutritionally than ones who don’t. [Ed. Note: I know you all are going to jump all over me for that one – I’m trying to track down where I read that.] And at any rate, school lunch only = 5 meals out of 21 a week, plus snacks, and you’re doing an admirable job with the rest. I would absolutely let yourself off the hook on this one.
At the request of this parent, I’m throwing this open to Lunch Tray readers. Should she feel like a traitor or a failure?
Viki says
Someone who had older children than I did once told me in a vary serious tone: ” you have to choose your battles wisely.” She was right of course.
All this mom can do is try the school lunch with her daughter. Is it possible to do on a trial basis. If she actually eats the lunch, not the a la carte extras, isn’t trading her X food for an extra Y food(unless of course it is a roll for a veg or a fruit or something similar), isn’t coming home starving and then ruining her dinner with that extra meal she eats when she comes home from school…well, go for it.
Can this mom sit in on lunch to see how things work out? I mean if she is paying for the school lunch and the child is still only eating the junk or trading for junk how is she to know? The leftovers are trash at the end of the lunch.
OR
Start looking at those Bento blogs and see if you can get the child interested in helping to plan her lunch with you.
What does she eat when she is at home for lunch? Why doesn’t it translate into taking lunch to school? Is it just the lure of the trade?
Or because of the food issues she doesn’t want to be seen as different?
I have experience with that one… Oldest with Peanut and soy allergies…sensitive to other legumes…
I feel like saying “call me, we’ll talk” LOL
Dr. Susan Rubin says
As parents, the guilt never really ends. If this mom wants to feel better about letting her child eat school lunch, I would recommend that she commit to investing time, energy and money over the next 12 years in improving the toxic food environment AND the food education component in her child’s school. Mom should eat lunch in the cafeteria on a regular basis and bring a friend to help build momentum.
The problem is not solved with a healthy lunch from home or in the cafeteria. We must raise the Food IQ in schools across the country.
I just dropped my second of three daughters off to college this week. The toxic food environment is alive and well there. We all must do everything in our power to nip it in the bud during the K-12 years.
Its time for all of us to roll up our sleeves and get to work!
Lenée says
How involved is your little one in the process of making her lunch? Sometimes when you take them shopping to help pick out healthy foods she likes, and then she helps to choose the next day’s menu for her lunch, she might be more inclined to eat her choices. Of course she needs to choose from the healthy options you approve of, and if they tend to be more plant based, such as the fruit you mentioned, load her up with those! Her protein needs can be met at breakfast and dinner with you supervising. I always had more success with getting my kids to eat their lunches when they were involved in the shopping and preparing process. Of course they couldn’t choose just anything–it had to be within the healthy guidelines I set–but they did have a choice. I found that the special trip to the grocery just for lunch needs, with my little one choosing and bagging the produce, and pulling things from the shelf and getting it into the cart, handing the money over to the clerk, etc. and us referring to the trip as ‘Danielle’s’ or ‘Sean’s’ shopping trip seemed to foster a pride in my child’s (mom-approved) food choices. They were more inclined to eat the foods that they had a hand in shopping for and packing up for lunch. When packing the lunch at home I would remind them of what our last trip had produced and would ask them things like, “would you like the apple or banana this time?” My son used to always want those little ‘Lunchables’ so we would shop for ingredients to make our own. We got a little Tupperware with individual compartments and load them up with our own ingredients. He loved those!
It’s along the same lines of getting a stubborn little one ready for bed. You never say, “Do you want to get ready for bed?” Rather, “It’s time to get ready for bed! Do you want to put your jammies on first, or brush your teeth? When your done you can pick a book for your bedtime story.” Those are the choices, those are the options.
“I want to pick the book first!”
“Okay, but we can’t read it till the teeth and jammies are done, so pick a book and then pick which one you’re going to do first!”
There’s no escape from having to prep for bed, but you can choose how you want to do it. And, there’s no escape from consuming a healthy, mom-approved lunch, but you do have options for what you want in your lunch tomorrow. When a little one has choices, they feel that important sense of autonomy and independence, that they do have some control in their lives and their environment. It’s not a 100% sure bet that these methods will work for everyone, but I had many years of success, with a few bumps here and there as my kids were growing up! Good luck!