{"id":270,"date":"2016-09-24T16:31:27","date_gmt":"2016-09-24T16:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/?p=270"},"modified":"2016-09-03T16:34:05","modified_gmt":"2016-09-03T16:34:05","slug":"school-lunchbox-rules-and-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/2016\/09\/school-lunchbox-rules-and-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"School Lunchbox Rules and Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there\u2019s one area that is frequently discussed among parents and teachers but has no clear solution in place, it is the topic of school lunchboxes.\u00a0 Many believe that poor quality lunches are a big part of the growing obesity epidemic and some schools are taking dramatic steps to deal with the problems of children food<\/a>.\u00a0 Others believe that parents need to be better informed about what they should give their kids for lunch.\u00a0 So what are the rules and ideas to make for a better, healthier lunch<\/span><\/p>\n

Educating parents<\/span><\/p>\n

Others take the view that the solution isn\u2019t about banning or confiscating foods but educating parents on what constitutes a healthy lunchbox and what they should include in it to give their kids the best meal.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the US, there is also a big move towards giving parents the information to create healthy lunches.\u00a0 This can include elements such as baking batches of food to freeze such as whole gain muffins or breads as well as healthier cookies.\u00a0 A big emphasis is placed on what the food looks like because tasty looking food is more likely to be eaten by the kids \u2013 hence the reason that sugary foods are always popular.<\/span><\/p>\n

Filling a box with veggies sticks and a little amount of a yoghurt dip or hummus are ideas discussed along with healthy crackers with toppings, fruit smoothies and sandwiches made with pitta bread rather than normal white bead.\u00a0 Even leftovers such as grilled chicken breasts cut into sticks or nuggets and served with a dip are easy to make options.<\/span><\/p>\n

Websites such as Change4life offer a rota of school lunchbox meal ideas to get the right stuff into the kids but to keep the menu varied.\u00a0 There is also a range of recipes on the site to make with the kids and then send into school for their lunch.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why it matters<\/span><\/p>\n

While the growing concerns about childhood obesity are at the centre of these concerns, there are other reasons why a good, healthy school lunch is a benefit to children.\u00a0 For starters, eating the right foods can boost the metabolism, making the children feel more energetic and increasing their concentration.\u00a0 This leads to better results in class.<\/span><\/p>\n

By making all children eat school lunches, there can be a stop to the problem of some children feeling left out when eating a school meal versus a \u2018fun looking\u2019 lunchbox filled with poor nutritional foods.\u00a0 Let\u2019s face it, kids love what isn\u2019t good for them and if they see their friends eating fun, sugary foods, they don\u2019t want to eat their own healthy lunch.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether banning, confiscating or educating is the way forward, it is clear that a plan needs to be in place to help our kids have a happy, healthy lunch that sets them up well for the rest of the day.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there\u2019s one area that is frequently discussed among parents and teachers but has no clear solution in place, it is the topic of school lunchboxes.\u00a0 Many believe that poor quality lunches are a big part of the growing obesity epidemic and some schools are taking dramatic steps to deal with the problems of children … Continue reading “School Lunchbox Rules and Ideas”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,56,18,67,78],"tags":[94,130,70,61],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cake","category-children","category-cookery","category-food","category-ideas","tag-best","tag-eating","tag-find","tag-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions\/271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiddyzone.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}