Treats, Kids, Snack Packs
Takes a little effort, but it's worth the trouble.
I guess back-to-school thoughts have been on my brain this week, which is why a blog posting I read on About.com’s Calorie Count Blog really hit home today. The blog discussed the growing trend of kids bringing snack packs in place of real food lunches. Apparently “real food” was considered weird by kids, plus, it wasn’t as trade-able as those snack packs. It’s a disturbing trend that I’ve witnessed for myself.
Snack packs are among the more insidious processed foods. On the surface they seem like a good thing. They offer limited serving size packs of snacks making a parent feel good that their child isn’t eating too much of a non-nutritious food item. Just a little bit for fun, right? But you pay a hefty price for these packs compared with making your own. And since only 5 – 10 packs come in one box, it’s not going to last very long with more than one child in the house. So we parents decide to purchase several boxes, and usually the boxes are a different variety. What happens next is that in a kid’s search for variety, they eat more than one a day – they’re not big, right? The next step, as the blog discusses, is that lunches become filled with these snacks as the main lunch items. Kids, of course, like to trade. And you’re not going to make it into the trade pool with something that hasn’t been advertised on tv. Suddenly your child comes home requesting other varieties of snacks than you wanted to feed them, and the cycle grows more vicious.
I’m not sure how to turn the tide on this awful, expensive trend. One possibility is to limit sweets and treats to homemade, non-portable desserts, like you see above. We made these yesterday. It was fairly easy, except for the cookie spoons which turned into an afternoon, summer vacation craft project. The rest was good quality sorbet and ice cream, topped with fresh fruit. Served in small but cute dishes, it seemed like a very special dessert.
But for the child who really likes to trade at lunch, that solution will leave them out in the cold. Of course you could be militant and pack carrot sticks and celery, but then you risk the gloomy face coming off the school bus. Or, worse, you discover the sticks went directly into the trash at school, and your child begged a friend for one of their snack packs. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen with other kids, and don’t doubt it has happened with mine.
So here’s my plan for this fall. First, I’m going to limit the number of bagged snack varieties I keep in the house. That way they will only be inclined to dump one into the lunch box instead of multiples. I’ll still keep a variety of non-bagged snacks for after school and friends coming over, but they won’t be as portable. And maybe I’ll bake more cookies. That way they will pack two or three in their lunch boxes as the small, sweet ending to a healthy lunch. And, I hope, the girls will have a harder time parting with them for a processed snack pack.
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Aren’t the lunches they serve in the school cafeteria supposed to be nutrtionally balanced. If your girls bought their lunch wouldn’t the problem be solved?
Well, they don’t like the lunches at school all of the time. Plus, I don’t agree with the school’s opinion that the lunches are balanced. A lot of the stuff they pass off as lunch at school is not particularly healthy in my book, and neither are the choices when left up to the kids. I’m not part of the “food police” who have become so militant of late, but I do believe when it comes to offering kids choices, they need more parental supervision than they get in the lunchroom. For example, I’m not for taxing soft drinks as some states are advocating, but I am all for keeping the out of the cafeteria.
With deference to all the cafeteria ladies, why are my taxes paying for a school district dietician?