Which? has issued a warning to parents who use pre packaged snacks as part of their child’s lunch. The labelling on these snack foods don’t provide clear information regarding the nutritional content. Parents could be packing what they believe is a healthy packed lunch for school, when it actually contains high levels of fat, sugar and salt. As the childhood obesity levels continue to rise, Which? are calling for the traffic light system to be used on labelling.
A large number of children take packed lunches to school instead of purchasing a school meal. A survey of 1000 parents, conducted by Which? revealed that 81 percent of children take a pre packaged snack as part of their packed lunch. However, parents don’t realise that these snacks are loaded with fat, salt and sugar. The executive director of Which? Richard Lloyd said:
These products may seem like handy fillers for your child’s lunchbox, but they can be bad for their health and your wallet.
Lloyd recommends making your own snacks for packed lunches, or giving them school dinners which are healthier. Which? looked at some of the more typical products used in packed lunches and found some disturbing results. For instance, a Robinson’s Fruit Shoot drink contains more than four teaspoons of sugar, and a Dairylea Lunchables ‘Ham ‘n’ Cheese’ Crackers snack has 1.8g of salt, which is over half a days recommended amount for a child aged four to six years.
According to the National Health Service, a third of a packed lunch should be starchy foods like bread, rice or pasta. Some protein which can be meat, fish or beans and an item of dairy which could be a yoghurt or milk. One portion of vegetables and one portion of fruit is also recommended. School meals are an option to be considered. A number of parents may think that school meals are expensive but in comparison to pre packaged snacks and drinks, they are good value.
The survey revealed that 70 percent of parents would like to see the traffic light system used on food labelling and that 33 percent of parents don’t check the labels. To help reduce the levels of childhood obesity, a traffic light system would help busy parents to see at a glance which items are healthy for a packed lunch.