How can you send your children to school with a healthy lunch that they will actually eat? In part four of our Back to School series, Lochlan Lineham gets some tips from parents and a nutrition expert.
In a world of endlessly rising food costs, feeding the kids five school lunches a week is not cheap – and customer satisfaction is a constant challenge.
Sarah Ostergaard admits that getting her children to eat their sandwiches “can be difficult”.
Varying away from the classic marmite and cheese has helped make things easier, the Stanley Bay mother of three told the Herald.
“I’ve tried to diversify a little bit by making sort of burger buns kind of things with patties in them or sometimes like carrot, chicken.
“I sometimes make sushi if I’ve got time. That’s quite time-intensive, but yeah, the sandwiches aren’t so popular. So I do try to diversify a little bit.”
Bento-style lunchboxes with separated compartments helped cut down on Glad Wrap and other packaging, a welcome tip for those whose kids go to zero-waste schools.
North Shore mother of two, Jodie Peters, uses dinner time as a way to prep her two teenage boys’ lunches.
“We would make too much dinner or plan to make school lunches for the week.
“It could have been cold pizzas or cold sausages or, in the winter time, we used to make stir fries and heat them up in the morning and put them in a thermos flask and send them to school.”
The savings from doing so were massive, with an under $15 stir fry lasting the week.
“It was not a huge impact to our grocery bill when we were doing things like that.”
With two boys doing multiple sports, nutrition was important, she said, so it was also a good way to make sure they got enough protein and stayed full.
University of Auckland professor of population nutrition and global health, Boyd Swinburn, said sandwiches, leftovers, fruits and vegetables were all solid options for the lunchbox.
Swinburn said parents should try to fill their kids with “real foods”, even though the supermarket’s middle aisles were filled with cookies, chips and other ultra-processed snacks, which looked tempting.
Ultra-processed foods were linked with low mood as well as depressive and anxiety symptoms in children.
“These foods are not happy foods, they’re actually sad foods.”
Children’s teeth and weight also took a hit, he said.
“We have thousands and thousands of operations in the public hospitals under general anaesthetic just to pull out rotten teeth in kids, and that’s totally preventable.”
Swinburn said no one would argue with letting the children eat chips once a week, but it was important not to let it spiral into a regular thing.
“The concept of a treat has been linked to ultra-processed foods, and so it has this positive halo to it.
“I think it becomes a little bit of a culture and kids, of course, like the ultra-processed foods because they’re very tasty, they’re full of fat and sugar and salt.
“If it becomes a culture at school that’s what the kids have, and then that’s very difficult for parents to fight against.”
The time to prepare and the cost of a healthy packed lunch could be a challenge for parents, said Swinburn, but it was worth it for the educational and health benefits.
Getting children involved in making their lunches could make it easier for parents too.
A way to combat the prevalence of unhealthy lunch items would be to expand the healthy school lunch programme, Swinburn said.
More than 242,000 students receive lunches through the programme every day, and if more did, Aotearoa would have a healthier population, he said.
“I really think that the healthy lunch programme that now goes to a quarter of kids should really be going to all kids.
“It’s not just poorer kids that have problems with mental health, that have problems with dental health and obesity.”
Despite problems with the “current low-cost programme that’s been instituted by this Government”, the reception from principals across the country has been positive.
“They see kids’ attention in the classroom, they see kids are happier, they’re healthier, they’ve got a basis for being able to join up what they’re eating in the lunches to what’s in the curriculum. And it’s a really positive thing.
“The challenge is that it costs money ... so it’s at risk of being pushed over and lost.”
Thursday: Transport
Friday: After-school activities