Six-year-old schoolboy suspended for having Mini Cheddars in his lunchbox...

As far as I'm concerned the parents would have signed an HSA (Home School Agreement) and would have known the policy before letting their child attend the school.
The parents then 'tried it on' by putting other banned food in his lunch box and they lost.
I can't see anything wrong with what has happened except that two innocent children have lost out because of their foolish parents.
 
Dimple said:
As far as I'm concerned the parents would have signed an HSA (Home School Agreement) and would have known the policy before letting their child attend the school.
The parents then 'tried it on' by putting other banned food in his lunch box and they lost.
I can't see anything wrong with what has happened except that two innocent children have lost out because of their foolish parents.
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The parents didn't lose, the kids did. And it's the school that is responsible for it.
 
I think its a bit excessive to expel the boy and his brother because of their parents choices. Its not like the kid is battering other children with the packet.
 
Energize said:
I don't see how that's related to what I was talking about. I said replacing snacks with fruit etc isn't going to combat obesity because their energy content is similar. As far as blood sugar goes however, chocolate has a lower glycemic index than many fruits.
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Maybe I misunderstood you, apologies. Replacing snacks with fruits if the calorific content is the same probably won't you're right, but your body will actually be able to utilise more nutrients usefully than snacking on rubbish, and the insulin response will be less. Our digestive process though works better with fruits in terms of insulin response than sugary carbs or simple carbs.

However, once you get to obese levels your hormonal profile is thrown a kilter - and even eating "well" will struggle to skew the hormonal balance back to a higher metabolic state. That's getting into rather technical aspects that I've covered many times before though.

You're right chocolate (real pure cocoa rather than all the emulsified cocoa butter crap that people associate with chocolate) is good. Better than fruits? IT depends what you mean by better - real chocolate has good nutritional properties and good fats (As well as some of the less good, but that's still not a huge issue).
 
Energize said:
The parents didn't lose, the kids did. And it's the school that is responsible for it.
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I do believe I did say that the kids lost and it is the last sentence in my unedited post.
However the school is not responsible, the school has rules, the parents would have signed an HSA and the parents went back on it when they were warned.
It's strange that 100s of other parents are able to abide by what they signed.
 
Dimple said:
I do believe I did say that the kids lost and it is the last sentence in my unedited post.
However the school is not responsible, the school has rules, the parents would have signed an HSA and the parents went back on it when they were warned.
It's strange that 100s of other parents are able to abide by what they signed.
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The reason why I never sign home school agreements(at least not without amendments and/or stipulations)...they are not legally enforceable or worth the paper they are written on in any case.

Besides, just because a lunchbox has a bag of cheddars in it doesn't mean it isn't balanced or healthy overall so even if the HSA had such a stipulation in it (ours did not) that doesn't necessarily mean that the parents broke it. (not that following it is a legally sanctioned requirement of a child attending school anyway) in fact the only legislative responsibility rests on the School, an HSA must not be used to sanction exclusions, punishments or expulsions on either the Child or Parent for failure to abide by their stipulations.

If the school are following this line of reasoning then they are treading on very thin ice from a legal perspective. No parent is obliged to follow school rules other than ensuring the attendance of their child.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...ile/268863/home-school_agreement_guidance.pdf
 
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In some quarters of Pakistan they believe girls should be denied eduction.

In some quarters of the UK they believe children who eat mini-cheddars should be denied education.

Yet we laugh at the former????

Maybe we need a British Malala Yousafzai to stand up and defend the rights of children who enjoy synthetic cheese flavoured snacks.
 
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pitchfork said:
Never had a problem when I was a lad, seriously, I ate everything and I still do. Always liked vegetables, ate tomatos off my grandfather vines.

Wouldn't dream of leaving my plate any other way that empty - fussy eating is bred into the children by the parents. If your kids won't eat carrots that's largely your fault.
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i agree with this 100%

also Ritz > M. cheds.
 
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Freefaller said:
Maybe I misunderstood you, apologies. Replacing snacks with fruits if the calorific content is the same probably won't you're right, but your body will actually be able to utilise more nutrients usefully than snacking on rubbish, and the insulin response will be less. Our digestive process though works better with fruits in terms of insulin response than sugary carbs or simple carbs.
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Fruits are simple/sugary carbs, glucose and fructose are monosaccharides.

I can't help but feel that these school policies are based on hysterical demonisation of snack foods and conspiracy theories about artificial sweeteners in diet fizzy drinks etc being toxic, because they don't seem to be based on scientific evidence when you look at the actual nutritional information.

Dimple said:
I do believe I did say that the kids lost and it is the last sentence in my unedited post.
However the school is not responsible, the school has rules, the parents would have signed an HSA and the parents went back on it when they were warned.
It's strange that 100s of other parents are able to abide by what they signed.
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It's unethical to deny a child education, more so when their parents are paying the tax that funds that school. Agreements etc are irrelevant. Besides you cannot simultaneously say that parents must send their children to school (and demand tax from them), yet at the same time force parents to sign absurd non evidence based policies which will exclude their child from school. It's a catch 22 situation, get arrested if you don't send your child to school, or be forced to abide by a completely ridiculous policy you don't agree with.
 
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Energize said:
Fruits are simple/sugary carbs, glucose and fructose are monosaccharides.
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Yes and they are metabolised differently to refined sugars - the de novo lipogenesis is reduced on an isocaloric diet if only supplied by fruits than by refined sugars. In fact dnl has been researched to be negligible in response to fruit based sugars (not forgetting the nutritious benefits of fruits). Also eating a lot of fruit owing to the fibre content and calorific content often means you eat less elsewhere (I'm assuming an isocalorific diet here). Also let us not forget our bodies have been eating fruits for 10s of thousands of years, refined sugars are a very recent development.

However, without being overly pedantic about it, a pack of mini cheddars now and again, a sweet or a glass of Coke from time to time isn't going to do you any harm. Everything in moderation - heck people used to follow a form of Mithridatism to train their bodies to deal with certain toxins. Am I saying refined sugars and carbs are toxins? No, but I still wouldn't choose to eat them. :)

I can't help but feel that these school policies are based on hysterical demonisation of snack foods and conspiracy theories about artificial sweeteners in diet fizzy drinks etc being toxic, because they don't seem to be based on scientific evidence when you look at the actual nutritional information.
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I agree re: toxicity, but you do have to accept that these foods are lower in nutritional value compared to a bowl of fruit and nuts for example or other decent wholefoods.

It's unethical to deny a child education, more so when their parents are paying the tax that funds that school. Agreements etc are irrelevant. Besides you cannot simultaneously say that parents must send their children to school (and demand tax from them), yet at the same time force parents to sign absurd non evidence based policies which will exclude their child from school. It's a catch 22 situation, get arrested if you don't send your child to school, or be forced to abide by a completely ridiculous policy you don't agree with.
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Agreed 100%.


PS It's nice to have a decent discussion with someone on GD for a change. :)
 
Energize said:
yet at the same time force parents to sign absurd non evidence based policies
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I'm no expert on food and how it can change the behavior of a child but I think we will all agree that fizzy drinks can have a massive change in a child.
My wifes school doesn't have a policy on the lunch box but has a 100% policy on the drinks children bring to school because as a teacher she sees first hand the difference a drink makes.
Perhaps there is evidence that certain foods can cause disruption in the class room!
 
Freefaller said:
Yes and they are metabolised differently to refined sugars - the de novo lipogenesis is reduced on an isocaloric diet if only supplied by fruits than by refined sugars.
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The sugars in fizzy drinks etc are glucose and fructose, so I'm not sure what products you are referring to by "refined sugars".

Freefaller said:
I agree re: toxicity, but you do have to accept that these foods are lower in nutritional value compared to a bowl of fruit and nuts for example or other decent wholefoods.
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Yes, they certainly don't have the vitamins and minerals that fruit has. But in terms of calories and blood sugar there seems to be no good clinical reason to ban snack foods.

Dimple said:
I'm no expert on food and how it can change the behavior of a child but I think we will all agree that fizzy drinks can have a massive change in a child.
My wifes school doesn't have a policy on the lunch box but has a 100% policy on the drinks children bring to school because as a teacher she sees first hand the difference a drink makes.
Perhaps there is evidence that certain foods can cause disruption in the class room!
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No I don't agree with that. Even ignoring the fact that diet drinks don't contain any sugar, it's been demonstrated that sugar doesn't cause hyperactivity, high carbohydrate foods like bread have a similar glycemic load to snacks so if fizzy drinks have an effect then so would bread.
 
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Energize said:
The sugars in fizzy drinks etc are glucose and fructose, so I'm not sure what products you are referring to by "refined sugars".
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Yes in the form of high-fructose corn syrup which is a LOT more concentrated than what you'd find in a punnet of strawberries for example.

i.e. the amount they put in for the food is not equivalent to that of a fruit.

I'm not disagreeing that moderation is fine, and that the occasional treat will do you any harm - however, constant eating of poor nutritional foods isn't something I'd promote, especially from an early age.
 
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