“Lunchbox reminder! Today you packed some really great lunchbox options. However,Mini Rice Cakes (pure milk chocolate) is not in line with our healthy lunchbox guidelines. Please save these foods for home and refer to our healthy lunchbox guidelines for an alternative.”
Gone are the days when you could give a child money for a pie and a can of Coke for lunch.iStock
Chocolate mini rice cakes,purchased at the supermarket and marked “lunchbox friendly” didn’t meet the cut apparently. Anyone else remember when lunch was a Four’N Twenty,can of Coke and a vanilla slice?
Before my kid started school,he did a year at kinder. Nude lunches,we were told,were the ideal;lunches with zero packaging or plastic. Desperate to please and show how little my job affected my parenting,I did this religiously,until I opened the kinder fridge one day and saw tens of lunchboxes all lined up:they contained pouches of yoghurt,packs of chips,muesli bars and lots of sugar-heavy bliss balls. Thank goodness,I sighed.
Before I stopped tying myself in knots trying to create the perfect bento-nude-no processed sugar-aspirational-love-filled lunchbox that apparently reflected all my anxieties as a parent,I joined a few lunchbox inspiration groups on social media to keep up with the Joneses.
But now,I’m watching as more parents from around Australia post their hurt,mortification and embarrassment,having been the recipient of a lunchbox shaming sticker. These are the parents who care enough that they choose to spend their spare time in social media groups chatting lunchbox ideas. I can’t help but feel that this strategy needs an urgent rethink.
It’s the perfect example of a policy that looks great on paper,if you can completely divorce yourself from the fact that not everyone has the finances,nutritional education,time or inclination to spend hours each week constructing a lunchbox that jumps through someone else’s nutritional hoops.
There are better ways for schools to promote healthy eating than sending home passive aggressive notes to the parents.Supplied
Food is a multi-dimensional issue,driven by socio-economic status,culture,gender,education and a multitude of other factors. This sort of terse,passive-aggressive communication on a sensitive issue like what we feed our kids,has the ability to feed right into serious triggers. It also polarises food into “yes” and “no” categories,destroying the much healthier and realistic approach to eating,which is that treats are fine in moderation. When I posted about this issue online,immediately I was inundated with concerned parents saying it was going to lead to eating disorders.
“It annoys me on lots of levels but the main thing for me is that I make a really conscious decision at home not to use emotional language around food,” my friend says. “I grew up with my mum saying she was being ‘good’ if she skipped dessert or ‘bad’ if she ate chocolate. I developed some pretty unhealthy attitudes to food that took years to unpack. So with the girls,I ban any talk about food that involves guilt or shame or even ascribing value. Food is just food.“
She also adds:“This is just a perfect intro to emotional eating and binge/restrict cycles.″
In addition to the obvious creation of issues around food that these notes create with the kids,it is also incredibly offensive to parents,all of who are doing their best within their circumstances.
My friends who’ve received the stickers,describe feeling bereft and mortified. I don’t blame them. Part of the fear around parenting is surely judgment from others. As much as you try,it really can sting. But a note like this? No nuance,no care and the parent is left feeling like a failure. We also know from study after study that the vast majority of these lunchboxes are being prepped by women,many of whom are taking on the bigger burden in domestic and emotional labour,while also in paid work.
But ultimately,leaving aside the obvious danger of serious allergens like nuts,it’s up to parents to decide what’s in a kid’s lunchbox. If there are serious issues with what a kid is eating or,for instance,a kid who’s not bringing lunch at all,there’s a better way to address it then sending notes with no recognition of the cultural or financial reasons behind how lunchbox decisions are made.
“You could actually construct an entirely nutritious diet from packaged and processed foods only if you tried hard enough,and processed or packaged food lasts in a lunch box all day in this heat,” explains food and nutrition scientist Dr Emma Beckett.
Some kids are fussy eaters. Some will only eat things that are white. Some will only eat things that are soft. Some have sensory issues. There isn’t just one way to feed a child. And even parents whose kids will eat pretty much anything (like mine) know the pain of opening a lunchbox that hasn’t even been opened since you packed it,let alone the contents eaten.
“There’s no point giving kids gourmet,fresh and whole food if they don’t eat it and only consume that side serve of guilt instead,” notes Beckett. “The stigma issue with food shaming is so understudied because we all lean on our own moral connections with food and it keeps going around.“
Meanwhile,our teachers,who lord knows have enough stress on themhad enough going on pre-Covid,let alone the stressors on them during the height of the pandemic and now,are policing lunchboxes for inclusions that don’t meet guidelines. Not rules,guidelines But either way,this is a destructive task and given the reaction I’ve seen online to this issue,they’re probably getting some pretty colourful feedback from parents. I dare say this is a task they could do without.
Isabelle Oderberg is a Melbourne writer.