Kids Packed Lunch Box

[Listlad]

My little one is 6 years old and definitely does not know what is best for her. She is highly focussed on the next school year where she will have a packed lunch for school. She is probably hoping it will be filled with all sorts of goodies. She is not (as far as we know) diabetic but could easily end up that way if we are not careful. Peer pressure plays a big part in the content of kids packed lunch boxes but we want to send her to school with a packed lunch which is nutritious and one that will not lead her along the slippery slope towards Type 2 diabetes.

Anyone with kids with suggestions please.

 

[Juicyj]

Personally I avoid fruit including raisins, except blueberries, I put in cucumber sticks, carrot sticks, cheese sticks, you can do a sarnie with protein bread, they get used to it soon enough, ham, cooked sausages, boiled egg, I also use a packed lunch box that has separate compartments to keep things together. Yoghurts are a minefield, sadly most kids yoghurts are loaded with sugar, but Yeo Valley do a kids one - Organic Fromage Frais which doesn't contain sugar, but fruit puree instead.

Also it's good to get them involved in packing the box up so they are interested in what's going in and more likely to eat it.

 

[Listlad]

Personally I avoid fruit including raisins, except blueberries, I put in cucumber sticks, carrot sticks, cheese sticks, you can do a sarnie with protein bread, they get used to it soon enough, ham, cooked sausages, boiled egg, I also use a packed lunch box that has separate compartments to keep things together. Yoghurts are a minefield, sadly most kids yoghurts are loaded with sugar, but Yeo Valley do a kids one - Organic Fromage Frais which doesn't contain sugar, but fruit puree instead.

Also it's good to get them involved in packing the box up so they are interested in what's going in and more likely to eat it.

Thanks. What you have just posted seems to match my own thinking. I just will need to fend off the “ Little Billy has chocolate in his lunch box” type of thinking, from the little mite.

 

[Listlad]

I wanted to post this in the kids section but realised there wasn’t much scope for it.

 

[Juicyj]

Thanks. What you have just posted seems to match my own thinking. I just will need to fend off the “ Little Billy has chocolate in his lunch box” type of thinking, from the little mite.

You will get peer pressure every minute every day as there's always another kid who get's the sugar box at school, however re-enforce healthy food + healthy body when challenged, they will soon get bored of asking, our school has a simple policy of no sweets or biscuits and even crisps are frowned upon and have been confiscated, really it has to come from the school too so maybe write to the school governors and see if they can adopt healthier eating at school and in education too ? Long shot but worth a go.

 

[Spl@]

Yep. Educate. Give the kids the facts. No fancy kid friendly analogies and encourage sport exercise.
What I did with mine. One is now playing national hockey the other is a gymnastics nut. Oddly the hockey daughter is technically obese.

Anybody want to tell a 5"10 strong independent wall of muscle that wears a size 8 to 10 she's fat.

 

[Listlad]

Yep. Educate. Give the kids the facts. No fancy kid friendly analogies and encourage sport exercise.
What I did with mine. One is now playing national hockey the other is a gymnastics nut. Oddly the hockey daughter is technically obese.

Anybody want to tell a 5"10 strong independent wall of muscle that wears a size 8 to 10 she's fat.

Swimming and Taekwando any good? She has been doing both for about a year now.

 

[Spl@]

If it gets them off the computer and doing something physical who cares. Just encourage them in the physical stuff and in my case they look to their diet themselves.

Not forgetting their kids and will eat some junk. I just found that if it was all above board, open door and all that. They could talk without fear of a telling. They were actually pretty good themselves.

 

[Mr_Pot]

My children have a terrible diet but as they are in their thirties what can I do? They were ok when they were young but after teenage years and catering for themselves at university it all fell apart.

 

[Listlad]

My children have a terrible diet but as they are in their thirties what can I do? They were ok when they were young but after teenage years and catering for themselves at university it all fell apart.

When I was at university I went into halls of residence as I couldn’t trust myself to cook or leave myself enough money to feed myself. So I paid up front for a terms worth of half board meals when my money came through. I ate as much as I wanted but was still like a racing whippet. I have piled on a lot of pounds since then.

 

[Diakat]

You may find school have guidelines. For holiday club they have strict rules about what is acceptable- no sweets, no chocolate and no fizzy drinks.

 

[Listlad]

I haven’t fully got my head around school policy yet but this did get me worried just over a week ago....

“Fairtrade foods on sale at play times”

 

[KK123]

Yep. Educate. Give the kids the facts. No fancy kid friendly analogies and encourage sport exercise.
What I did with mine. One is now playing national hockey the other is a gymnastics nut. Oddly the hockey daughter is technically obese.

Anybody want to tell a 5"10 strong independent wall of muscle that wears a size 8 to 10 she's fat.

Not whilst she's holding a hockey stick.....

 

[Spl@]

Not whilst she's holding a hockey stick.....

Stick or not. She was too rough for touch rugby they play nowadays. Football she ripped them apart too. Mind some of the black eyes and bruises she has gone into school with, as well as being knocked out a couple of times won't hurt your school rep either eh?

 

[Listlad]

I did notice this evening when in school that there was an Eatwell poster up on the wall. I hadn’t noticed it before but when I saw it today I recognised it from previous posts on here and on the web etc etc.

 

[ringi]

You have control over breakfast, by giving your child a filling high protein cooked breakfast (e.g. omelette, kippers, high meat sausages etc) they will not want to eat as much while at school.

As for lunch, there are many interesting types of cold meat, cheeses, nuts, vig sicks, houmous, homemade drips etc. Maybe make it a game where she gets to choose from the selection you have, hence making she feel like she is in control. Avoid fruit juice as it is very high in sugar, likewise banana, otherwise most other fruit is good for someone who does not have diabetes.

(One problem with bananas is that you can't put a few little bits in a lunch box, and a complete banana has a lot of sugar in it.)

 

[Listlad]

You have control over breakfast, by giving your child a filling high protein cooked breakfast (e.g. omelette, kippers, high meat sausages etc) they will not want to eat as much while at school.

You know what, I think you are right.

 

[ringi]

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

 

[DCUKMod]

You know what, I think you are right.

I've posted various links for you in the past, but places like ditchthecarbs and sugarfreemom do aggregator posts for lunch boxes.

 

[Listlad]

I've posted various links for you in the past, but places like ditchthecarbs and sugarfreemom do aggregator posts for lunch boxes.

This is for kids lunch box not for me.

I personally have never needed a lunch box. For a short spell a few years ago when working in an office setting I used to take in left overs for lunch and heat them in the microwave at work. Currently I walk down the stairs from my office to the kitchen and pull something together. Most of my career I had lunch cooked by a catering outfit.

What I was posting about was a kids lunch box where the kid (my kid) isn’t diabetic but might well be if some kind of dietary constraint isn’t implemented.

There is another intended element to my thread. Which is to try and touch base with those who have younger children who do not yet have diabetes but that might well do in the future.