A mum was left furious after the ‘snack police’ at her son’s nursery seized his ‘unhealthy’ food.
Emma Clarke, from Slough, Berkshire, couldn’t believe it when son Archie’s packet of 99-calorie cookies were removed from his lunchbox on his first day.
And it wasn’t a one off - it happened a second time that week as a staff member at Cippenham Nursery School even took the four-year-old’s pack of Pom Bears.
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Emma claims on both occasions she’d packed a well-balanced lunch.
The 34-year-old says this has happened several times now during Archie’s 10 months there.
She adds she’s even been handed a ‘ridiculous’ note outlining the banned food.
Even more weirdly, little Archie has apparently returned home with one of his two satsumas that staff had swiped - claiming one was enough.
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At the nursery they apparently celebrate birthdays with wooden cakes, which Emma says is ‘a bit over the top’.
“I can't see anything wrong with a slither of cake or a little sweet with their friends to celebrate!” she said.
The mum-of-two said when Archie started at the nursery, a welcome meeting discussed smoothies and hidden sugars ‘which seemed okay’.
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But then things got ‘ridiculous’, as Emma explained: “They started going through a list of the crisps that were and weren't allowed and I went home and said to my husband this is going to be a nightmare especially with kids who are fussy eaters.”
The note made Emma laugh at first, and she eventually retuned the favour.
She explained: “Once I actually put a note in his lunchbox telling them not to remove any items and they still did.
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"They open up the lunchboxes and take the items out in front of them [the children] and can have them back at the end of the day because they are fine to eat when he's not at nursery.
"He [my son] gets worried now that he's going to get told off at nursery and asks what crisps I'm putting in his lunch."
Emma claims the rules around ‘healthier lunch boxes’ are ambiguous as items like sausage rolls and Peperami sticks are allowed but low-calorie snacks like Pop Chips are banned.
The mum added: "It feels like a tick box exercise so the nursery can be recognised as a healthy eating place.”
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After her first note, Emma says she was given a letter outlining banned food. The list of prohibited items included fruit juice, smoothies, crisps, chocolates, biscuits, cakes and jam sandwiches.
Emma said: "I know most parents are annoyed about it but they just don't say anything.”
Archie is apparently looking forward to school in September, where ‘none of these rules will apply’.
Nisha Gill, headteacher of Cippenham Nursery School, said: "Cippenham Nursery School has a lunch-box policy which is very similar to those seen in nearly all nursery schools nationwide. Its aim is to promote healthy food choices and encourage those both for the children in our care and their families.
"The vast majority of our parents are very supportive of the policy, understanding that outside of the school environment they can choose to feed their children whatever suits their family, and where there are dietary requirements we have discussed these to make appropriate exceptions for individual children.
“However, we whole-heartedly stand by our policy of encouraging healthy choices for the children in our care, as we are sure the hundreds, possibly thousands, of nursery schools do, across the country."
Topics: Parenting, Food and Drink
Jess Battison