My grandson’s school does have a little girl with type 1 diabetes but nothing has changed because of this.
My grandson, aged 6, is tall for his age and overweight, due, I feel to school meals as my daughter is conscious of what he eats at home and ensures he gets lots of regular exercise such as long walks and swimming. A typical school meal (Leicestershire): pizza, baked beans and “happy” faces (fried potato shapes) followed by chocolate sponge and chocolate sauce or fried fish, peas and chips followed by ice cream on Fridays. I suspect chips are deep fried and not the healthier oven baked variety. They never seem to be offered sweet potatoes, baked or fried. His meals at school are loaded with carbohydrates: pasta, jacket potatoes, mashed potatoes, chips etc and frequently these are served with other carbs such as pastry or pizza base. This is not a balanced meal! Every single day there is a choice of cake or a biscuit. If there are healthier options, no advice or help in choosing a healthy meal seems to be offered to these very young children and I feel they cannot really be expected to know much about nutrition at such a young age. They don’t seem to be offered yogurt or much in the way of fresh fruit. Often dessert is cheese and biscuits with grapes. My grandson will choose this but has only had grapes twice in two and a half years!?? He is picky (only child) and my daughter struggles to get him to eat some vegetables but if he has something like pizza at home (small individual one) he is served carrot and cucumber sticks along side - not grease and carb loaded ‘happy’ faces! My daughter has thought about packed lunches, but at his age these meals are free and all his class eat them (my grandson is not the only one who is overweight) and she feels he’d be the only child eating a packed lunch. The one good thing is that the children at my grandson’s school walk and run the ‘daily mile’ most days.
My other daughter (four children) complains that school meals encourages children to expect a sweet treat after their meals and they will often ask for ‘dessert’ after eating a meal at home.
I think school meals vary according to which LEA you child’s school is in, maybe there should be some standardisation? I feel these meals should be looked at nutritionally on a national level or we are just storing up trouble (and expense for NHS) for the future.