Stop Sending Your Kid To School With A Lunchbox Full Of Sugar

As if parenting with calm and sanity weren’t hard enough these days, there is a new internet trend aimed at congratulating each other for packing junk food in kids’ lunches.

Viral social media posts have garnered widespread attention and started a debate about so-called food shaming and “safe foods.” The social support for poor nutrition is a sad reflection of the lack of agency parents feel. It is possible to make changes in meaningful areas of your child’s development, such as nutrition. Understanding how and why kids eat is important. But believing we can choose to take action is the first and most important step.

Lauding Mediocrity: It’s ‘Perfectly Normal’

One post from a mom displays a “normal” lunch for an American schoolchild who brings food from home. The photo includes Oreos, marshmallows, Doritos, Kool-Aid, and a yogurt tube alongside a sandwich that appears to have lunch meat and cheese. 

Aside from the inside of the sandwich, protein is scarce in this lunch while high fructose corn syrup and food dye abound, but the mother defended her choices, writing in the caption, “Not all kids eat cucumbers or carrots. I don’t pack new things for school lunches, new foods can be introduced at home and taught how to enjoy not wasting my money to go in trash at school.” 

One father attracted attention on TikTok by writing notes in his daughter’s lunchbox explaining that he wants her to eat the junk food he packs for her and accusing the daycare of shaming his “non-healthy” food selection.

Most parents in a pinch have made questionable food choices for their children, relying on highly processed, easily prepared junk to get through yet another meal. But that is different from regularly and exclusively offering poor quality food and expecting to be praised for it.

Missed Opportunities and How Kids Learn to Eat

I was floored earlier this year when I read Bee Wilson’s First Bite: How We Learn to Eat. Wilson recounts her starting point, like most of us, believing that food preferences are inborn and unique with a strong genetic component. As decades of scientific study unanimously attest, that is simply not true. 

According to Wilson’s well-documented account of the research, we like what we eat because we eat it. Early exposure to smells, flavors, and textures leads to strong emotional attachment and forms part of our food preferences. If you are used to eating Doritos, you will continue to want Doritos. Most children who “don’t like” cucumbers and carrots have not been offered them or tasted them enough.

Adults who struggle with disordered eating will become incensed at the suggestion that food should be eaten in a certain sequence or that certain foods should be avoided. We are now told that “all foods are morally neutral.” This is true as far as it goes. The donut is not “bad” or “evil.” It is, however, shortsighted and lacking common sense to incorporate donuts into your regular diet. 

Eating nutritionally superior food is not morally superior; it is simply a reasonable and worthwhile thing to do. If we forever indulge our children’s “safe” food and allow them to start the meal with a cupcake instead of some crisp and refreshing greens, we are training them in habits that do not promote nutrient absorption, satiety, metabolic regulation, and healthy development. As they say, “The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”

What About Disordered Eating?

The solution to disorder is right order, not chaos. 

Adults who have reduced their intake of packaged and highly processed food will often remark that they notice significant improvements in mental clarity, sleep quality, and mood. Why would we assume children do not feel the effects of junk food? 

Because they are children who are dependent on us to make their food choices, they do not have the luxury of experimenting, nor do they have the life experience, knowledge, and perspective to modify and moderate their eating without a high chance of falling into a different form of disordered eating. Like it or not, your children rely on you to regulate what they eat.

Start Small

It is unhelpful to “normalize” poor quality eating in a time and place of astonishing abundance. However, the greatest cause for concern is not that some parents sometimes pack junk food; the issue is that too many parents no longer believe they have a choice. Once you accept the knowledge that you do get to decide, what next?

When exercising agency in a new area of life, building small habits will have lasting effects in the long run. Many a panicked mother has dumped processed food in the trash while embarking on a purity quest: no high fructose corn syrup, no gluten, no soy, no dairy! These health binges usually fail. 

Such a shock to the system of purchasing, preparing, and consuming food is not a decisive step toward health but rather a good way to set yourself up for disappointment and backsliding into fast-food drive-throughs and Lunchables. Start with a small, concrete, measurable change, and stick to it. 

There is no need to spend extravagantly on organic food that will wind up in the trash. While “bougie” foods marketed for “health” and ritzy farmers’ markets can be absurdly expensive, there are many basics that are not. Buying whole foods can improve your family’s nutrition without hurting your wallet, and by reducing packaged snacks, you can often spend significantly less. Once you find what your kids like, you can buy in bulk for additional bang for your buck. Don’t be fooled, Doritos and Oreos when priced per ounce are not cheap! 

A Few Places to Start

1. Make an easy swap. Instead of a sugar loaded “bar,” add in your child’s favorite fruit. Many kids love apples, mandarins, or bananas. The plastic container pictured in the infamous Oreos post above is also great for creating a tray of satisfying variety: vegetables and humus, nuts, cheese, sliced apple (soak them in a bit of lemon juice to prevent browning!). Once you get started, the possibilities are numerous.

2. Pay attention to protein. It’s eye-opening when you notice how often the meals we label “kids’ food” are nothing other than a grab-bag of refined carbohydrates. Protein, whether from eggs, nut butter, meat, or yogurt, can help kids feel full and satisfied. This simple awareness can begin to change the way you structure meals.

3. Embrace batch cooking and leftovers. It is unrealistic to make fresh, from-scratch meals on school mornings. If your child leaves the house before 7 a.m., it is most likely not going to happen. Instead, figure out what you can make ahead of time for satisfying lunch options that don’t involve food dye, MSG, and loads of sugar, all of which many parents notice are aggravating to their kids’ digestion and mood. A simple thermos with microwaved leftovers can be a cost-effective way to improve lunch nutrition. 

4. Eliminate dessert. Your child does not need it. Cupcakes, lollipops, and donuts are offered at virtually all children’s activities in mainstream culture. Sugar will find them. They also don’t need “reward” marshmallows in their lunch and sweet treats to make it through the day. 

Starting small and building on success will make a difference if we stay the course. The choices we make today will affect our children for a lifetime. 

Anna Kaladish Reynolds is a wife and mother in the great state of Texas. She writes at InspireVirtue.com and is interested in books and living the examined life.