At this point in September, most kids have returned to school after summer break. Our daughter had a lot of back-to-school anxiety as she started third grade, as this is the year that teachers start assigning homework. We are still working out the kinks with the new routine, but so far, the new school year is off to a great start. One of my responsibilities is packing our daughter’s snacks for school every day. We tend to rotate between the same snacks, with some variations. I always include a salty/crunchy snack, a fruit snack, and a granola bar or little bag of muffins. Occasionally, I feel bad that I don’t pack “healthier” options such as fresh fruit and vegetables, yogurt, etc., but most of the time, I feel good about what I pack for her, and she enjoys her snacks.
Last month, a story started circulating online about a school parents’ group chat text. Apparently, in this chat, one of the mothers of a student (Let’s call the student Suzy.) asked the other parents to stop packing “unhealthy” food items for their own kids because Suzy is not allowed to have these types of foods at home (or anywhere else). Furthermore, Suzy’s mom tells the group that Suzy has been trading her yogurt for another student’s Oreos, which is horrifying to her mother. In one instance, Suzy’s mom allegedly showed up to school one morning to look in another child’s lunchbox to see if they had been given Oreos. And, in response to Suzy’s mom’s “bizarre” request, the other parents in the group decided to send all their children into school with Oreos in their lunchboxes.
It is unclear if this story is 100% true or if it is fictional, but it nevertheless got a lot of parents riled up about what kids should and shouldn’t be bringing to school to eat. As I am sure you are all aware, sugar is still enemy #1 in most people’s minds, as we are constantly fed messages that giving our kids sugar will result in giving them diabetes, making them fat, and causing their teeth to fall out. As Jonah and I have written about extensively, these messages are damaging to kids because it perpetuates the idea that there are “good foods” and “bad foods,” leading most kids to have a preoccupation with the latter. Kids who are restricted from eating sugar often become hyperfocused on these foods, and when presented with them, say, at a friend’s house during a playdate or at a birthday party, they often end up fixating and overeating these “forbidden” foods.
I believe that parents are doing a major disservice to their children when they deprive (or heavily police) their sugar intake. As these kids grow up, there will be many times when they will be faced with these foods outside the home, and since they have not been allowed to have these foods at home, these kids will likely have very charged experiences around these foods. Most of them will likely overeat these foods when given the chance, which will result in not only feeling physically unwell, but most importantly will lead to them having feelings of shame, guilt, and worry about their parents finding out.
Our goal as dietitians is to help people reach a peaceful place with food, where all foods are seen as morally neutral. Much of our work centers around helping adults who were sugar-deprived as kids because most of them end up having a disordered relationship with food and their bodies. The messages we give our children about “good foods” and “bad foods” while they are growing up often stick with them through adulthood. The best thing we can do is give our children access to a variety of foods (including obviously nutrient-dense foods and “fun foods”) and teach them that all foods have a place at the table (or in the lunchbox).