A similar incident happened to a mom in Sydney, Australia where a teacher shamed her for packing two pink wafers in a lunch box that had fruits, veggies, and meatballs. Sadly, there are lots of stories just like that happening to moms everywhere. One mom in Texas received a hateful note from a daycare worker telling her to "put her son on a diet and go away."
The mom-shaming culture trend just keeps growing and getting out of hand. From eating organic to breastfeeding, they do a pretty good job tearing moms down for their choices that have nothing to do with the critics. Even if their so-called intentions are "good" or they're simply misguided, whenever adults believe they have a right to pass judgment on other moms for how they feed their kids without even knowing their personal background or experiences with food, it is self-righteousness at its core.
When I was growing up, I had a PB&J sandwich with Goldfish Crackers, a chocolate chip cookie or fruit snacks served with Capri Sun and I survived and I'm still pretty healthy overall. My classmates and teachers never complained as they focused on whatever they were eating and other things. Frankly, there are more important things to worry about than whatever a kid is eating from their lunch box. Aside from food allergies, sensitivities, and other factors a lot of kids are simply picky eaters.
Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and the web are teeming with lunch-box ready ideas and strategies to assist parents in turning their picky eaters into pint-sized gourmands eating a colorful medley of different food groups. But despite the resources and printable meal plans for affordable and healthy, nutritious lunches, it's a lot easier said than done. While I'm not a parent, I know raising kids has its challenges and introducing them to eating healthy is an obstacle course for many moms so they do what they can to ensure their kid is getting fed and nourished. Serving a piece of cookie or Lunchables isn't going to kill anyone. There is no shame in deciding to pack a kid's lunch with potato chips, a sandwich, an apple, and juice or water.
An article from Yahoo Lifestyle shares the negative impact lunch-box shaming has on a child's self-esteem and overall view of food in general.
“There are so many factors when it comes to feeding our kids every day: At lunch, we want to make sure they’ll actually have something they’ll eat so they have enough energy to play and learn, but there are also so many restrictions with things like peanut butter being banned from classrooms,” Lindsay Powers tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “Not to mention that food can get expensive, especially if you’re buying lots of fruits and veggies and organic packaged foods you know your kids just aren’t eating. So often times, parents rely on feeding their kids meals they know work.”Powers says that it’s unfair to judge a child’s overall nutrition based on one meal.
“Each individual meal may not always be perfectly healthy or perfectly balanced, but when you look at what a kid eats over the course of a week, everything balances out,” she says, adding that criticism over the contents of a lunchbox can affect how a child views food.
“We’re giving our kids food issues by shaming them over each individual meal — especially when they’re 5 years old!” Powers says. “Food is so loaded in our culture. Cake is good when we eat it at a birthday party, but bad when we eat it at home. We’re ‘being good’ when we eat healthy and ‘being bad’ when we indulge in candy. Kids don’t understand this nuance — they just think they’re good or bad people depending on what they eat. If our goals are to raise adventurous eaters with a healthy attitude toward food, shaming them over one meal flies in the face of that!”
“Lunch is complicated,” Sole-Smith tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “Kids’ appetites are tough to predict because they change often with activity level and growth fluctuations. And lunch can be a pretty stressful meal — you’re in the cafeteria, it’s loud and crowded, it’s almost always too short and kids are easily distracted. For those reasons alone, it’s totally reasonable for parents to want to pack the ‘easy’ foods they know their kids will like so the food part of the meal isn’t an added stressor. Add on food allergies, sensory challenges, the family’s grocery budget and how much time they even have available to pack lunch and all the more reason why tossing in some Oreos or goldfish crackers is an affordable, easy way to give your kid a good lunch that will comfort and nourish them.”
Sole-Smith says lunchbox-shaming — which she says unfairly targets moms — does more harm than good.
“Nutrition-policing kids’ lunchboxes doesn’t make kids eat better,” she says. “It just embarrasses the child and the family getting singled out. We have lots of research to show that shaming or pressuring kids to eat in certain ways backfires heavily.”
It's really not a teacher's place to dictate what a parent can and can't pack for their child's lunch in school. Teachers already have a lot on their plate as is and they're not qualified to weigh in on nutrition advice since they don't have the training for that. The parent knows their kid more than anybody and if they're concerned about eating habits, they can speak to a pediatrician or family doctor for a referral to a family dietician. The school administrators and teachers need to trust the parents judgment regarding food choices and just focus on their job. Simple as that. Had I been the parent of a child criticized for having Goldfish Crackers or Oreos with a sandwich, fruit, and veggies by their teacher, I'd pack extra in their sack lunch or lunch box with a written note in there. Lol
"Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. Then people who are not Christians will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others."-1 Thessalonians 4:10-12
This is so beautifully written!
ReplyDelete