Tuesday, 20 October 2015

The Great Crisp Ban of 2015

I like crisps. I am 39 years old and I like all sorts of crisps. Doritos, Skips, Monster Munch, I rarely meet a crisp I do not like. I am an adult, (allegedly) I know that too much of something can be bad for you. Apart from shoes, anyone tells you that there is such a thing as too many shoes, cut those people out of your life. No-one needs that kind of negativity in their world.

The WORST thing that you can do to me, as an adult, is tell me that I CANNOT eat something, and yet, my darling daughter's school has decided in their wisdom to BAN CRISPS from their lunch box. 

That right, the way to promote a healthy lifestyle in children from a young age is to ban them from having them. 

Now I don't know about you, but I don't want children to think that any food is BAD and that you are not allowed it. Why can they not learn about moderation instead? Crisps are not bad for you. Eating 7 packs of Doritos for dinner COULD be bad for you if you did it all the time, but it has been known for me to do such a thing. If you BAN crisps altogether, aren't you sending the wrong message to children? 

The other argument is, that this will create a black market for crisps, there will be 8yr olds in the school playground in corners whispering, "Pssst, French Fries, Skips, you want them, I've got them...... For a price" 

I am an adult, I am in charge of my daughters packed lunch box and I have yet to send her to school with just 3 packs of crisps and a can of coke for lunch. 

Whatever happened to commen sense? Why not, instead of banning crisps, talk about alternatives, challenge children to create a lunchbox without crisps at least 3 times a week. If you ban something, you only make it more exciting, am I right? 

What are your thoughts on this ban? 

I would love your thoughts.

Big Fashionista X X X 


  1. Had this at Jnrs old school, no crisps, chocolate, biscuits, fizzy drinks or even Ribena. I challenged the school about it. As I don't think it's up to the school to tell me what I can & can't find my child. At the time I was working for the celeb chef who spearheaded the campaign and pointed out I knew about nutrition & healthy eating.

    Just ridiculousness all round.

  2. Unfortunately a lot of parents have no common sense whatsoever hence bans like this. My son's school bans this, chocolate etc which to be honest I'm fine with as I wouldn't send them in his lunch anyway. I see where you are coming from though as banning can create other issues and it would be good to have that option if we would like to add the odd bag of crisps.

  3. I think its those two words: Common Sense. I have seen countless kids (especially the older classes of junior school) dropped to school with money "to buy lunch"... and what do the kids do: JUNKFOOD! So I can understand the schools asking parents to take a hand in preparing their kids lunches and not just allowing them to eat what they like. Our school has a "no treats" policy but if you get creative you can still include "treats" in their lunch box... if its home-made its fine according to the school (which blows my mind completely). I recon if you send them in on a friday you'll be ok

  4. It's an interesting topic to discuss. Up until a few months ago I worked for my local authority in helping young single mums/dads and families to learn life skills like healthy cooking, financial independence and budgeting, the importance of ensuring that your child does their homework, attends classes etc, so I worked closely with all the schools in the LA's catchment area.

    Some schools had banned junk food outright, others had allowed it only on Fridays to teach kids moderation and that it should be viewed more as a treat than an everyday food, and 1 or 2 hadn't yet enforced any policy. The schools that had banned it or allowed it on only one day a week had children who were better behaved during class and had higher end of year grades than the schools who didn't do anything about it. Coincidence?

    The area I live in has one of the highest youth and adult obesity rates in the UK so I'm all for the junk food ban or moderation to be taught in schools. The main problem is always the parent's attitude - when an obese and in poor health mum is screaming at me about the 'rights' that she has to feed her clinically obese 6 year old chips everyday, well I can see why some charities start to cite it as child abuse. That's obviously the extreme viewpoint to this issue, but I'd say sending your kid off to school with a healthy, crisps free packed lunch is the best way to go. Save the treats for occasional times outside of school hours and everyone's happy :)

  5. When I was a kid some kid was getting picked on for his packed lunch, so the headmaster came around every class, made everyone open their lunch boxes and took the piss out of them all. I still don't know if she was evil or awesome.

  6. I get where you're coming from, but there will always be the parent who DOES send a can of coke, bag of crisps and a chocolate bar in with their kid for lunch. I've no problem with our school having the ban (which it does), because I wouldn't send that stuff anyway, BUT... here's the issue I have. They ban the crap, they ban the fizzy drinks, and then they reward the kids with sweets. My son has come home several times sucking a lollipop for a project well done or with a mini bag of Haribo on holiday day. If it's not okay for me to send stuff like that in, why is it okay for the school to provide it? It's just confusing to kids and it sends a mixed message. And it pisses me off. If I wanted him to have a lollipop I'd buy lollipops. That to me is more damaging, that's equating behaviour with food and that's a long, slippery slope that I went flying down at a very young age. They're not dogs, they don't need to be rewarded with food. It drives me up the WALLS.

  7. I agree with you entirely. I have two kids and healthy eating is important to me, however I also believe that everything in moderation is fine. I also think the ultimate choice of what children eat should be the parents not the schools. Banning anything seems like a bad idea to me.
    I try not to buy crisps too often because like me, the kids would happy sit and eat 5 packets in a row!

  8. I think its an outrageous thing. It makes it more exciting to children if the school bans it to the point where the kids may even try to smuggle it in...
    I think the moderation policy would work a lot better as children know that they are allowed it but shouldn't be having them all of the time...



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