Health food at play time

Dumb Jon speaks:

A four-year-old girl was barred from eating a packet of chocolate buttons at her Cheshire primary school.

The school said sweets had been banned under its healthy eating policy because children were bringing in too many.

This practice of dictating to parents what their children can bring in to school to eat at snack time also goes on at the school that my boy goes to. No crisps, no chocs, no joy. They also have a thing called fruit and veg Tuesday when, horror of horrors, they request that a piece of fruit or veg is supplied as the child’s snack by their usually loving parents.

I have to tell you now that this fruit and veg Tuesday IS NOT followed by a jam and cigar Wednesday to balance things out! Yes, I know, hardly fair.

I had mixed feelings about the issue when my good lady first told me about it; I couldn’t decide whether I should jump up and down and froth there and then in the Kitchen or walk to the hall to do some stomping about (the wooden floor is great for stomping). I chose the former.

Needless to say we have come to a compromise, as so many do, so as not to bring down unwanted fury onto our son when all he wants to do is chomp and play. He takes one of those fake snack health bars packed with calories and chocolate disguised as raisins. Hehe, stick that in your face Miss.

This is not the end of the story though. I have to tell you that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy going on here and this hypocrisy takes the form of a pudding (much in the same way as the destructor took the form of the Mr. Stay puf marshmallow man). The day after we received the snack request from the school my son enjoyed a rather marvellous (and we were told in some detail) jam filled doughnut for his school dinner pudding. Certainly more yummy than the smiley face fish cakes he’d had earlier.

And so, in closing, health fascists are everywhere. They know deep down that it’s too late for us and so they move on to our children, thinking that they can persuade them to walk on the path of righteousness instead. That will be their undoing. Trust me, it will.

Posted by JohnJo at February 19, 2004 08:50 AM | TrackBack