School Shames Parents Over Preschooler’s Packed Lunch
A pre-schooler in Colorado wasn’t allowed to finish her lunch because her cookies weren’t nutritious enough, her mother says. (Photo: Tooga/Getty Images)
A mother of a preschooler is crying foul after her daughter’s lunch was sent home with a note saying her food was not nutritious enough.
Leeza Pearson, mother of a 5-year-old student at Children’s Academy preschool in Aurora, Colorado, sent her daughter to school with a ham and cheese sandwich, string cheese, and a four-pack of Oreos on Friday. But when her daughter came home from school that afternoon, the cookies were untouched and she said a teacher told her she couldn’t eat them because they weren’t nutritious enough. She also delivered to her mother a note from her teacher, which said, in part: “Dear Parents, it is very important that all students have a nutritious lunch. This is a public school setting and all children are required to have a fruit, a vegetable and a heavy snack from home, along with a milk. If they have potatoes, the child will also need bread to go along with it. Lunchables, chips, fruit snacks, and peanut butter are not considered to be a healthy snack. This is a very important part of our program and we need everyone’s participation.“
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This note, sent home with Leeza Pearson’s daughter, explains what the school expects students to eat for lunch. (Photo: 9 News)
Pearson did not respond to Yahoo Parenting’s request for comment, but she told 9-News that it isn’t the schools place to dictate what her daughter eats. "What the school thinks is healthy for her is not what I think is healthy for her,” she said. “That’s between me and her and our doctor — not the school.” Pearson didn’t claim to think Oreos were healthy, but told the station it was a portion of her daughter’s lunch, and she should have been allowed to eat it.
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Officials at the Children’s Academy declined to comment, but the director told 9 News that she’s investigating the note, which she says should not have been sent home. She added that it isn’t school policy to tell parents what children should eat for lunch.
Nutritionist Patricia Bannan, author of Eat Right When Time Is Tight, says there are two issues at play. The first is a school’s role in a student’s packed lunch. “I applaud schools in general now for having nutritious lunches available for children,” she tells Yahoo Parenting. “But the school’s job is to educate and support parents, not to randomly dictate how parents should feed their children. At the end of the day, the school doesn’t get to override the parent.”
Bannan says schools and parents should work together from the start of the school year, so that everyone is on the same page when it comes to childhood nutrition. “Whether it’s an in-person meeting at school orientation, or information provided in writing – and there should always be something in writing – schools need to learn to work with parents,” she says. “Schools are starting to move toward healthier choices, but as they do that there will be a lot of kinks in the road. This is an example of those kinks — the teacher putting the note was probably well-meaning, but not received well. No parent wants to be told they aren’t feeding their child well.”
A separate issue, Bannan says, is the note’s nutritional recommendations. “I don’t understand why you would have to have bread with a potato,” she says. “And peanut butter is a wonderful snack, if it is all-natural and there are no allergies. It provides protein and healthy fat.”
Much of the problem, Bannan says, might come from government mandated state-wide initiatives. According to 9 News, the school receives funding from Aurora Public Schools, which Bannan says could contribute to the problem. “Sometimes when you get into government-regulated food mandates, it takes common sense out of the equation,” she says. “You’re just crossing off items on a checklist.”
Better than, say, bread and a potato, is a lunch that includes a fruit or vegetable, lean protein, some fiber, and a calcium-rich source like milk or a milk-alternative. She points out, too, that schools should think twice before telling students that a food is totally off-limits. “You have to be careful about educating kids about ‘good’ foods and ‘bad’ foods,” she says. “Oreos are okay once in a while. To say ‘this is evil’ sets children up to have an unhealthy relationship with food.”
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