Half of nursery children’s lunch boxes filled with cakes and ‘stale’ junk food
Leftover Popeyes fast food and stale chips are some of the foods nursery staff say they have found in the lunch boxes of children as young as one.
Jasmin Rahman, the nursery manager of Blooming Buds, said the most appalling lunch box she has seen since she joined the nursery in 2013 had in it “leftover chicken and other fast food”.
“I’ve seen children with lunch boxes full of cake and cupcakes,” she said.
Every year, Ms Rahman has to educate parents on the importance of a healthy lunch box.
The start of the school year is the hardest time when “almost 50 per cent of the children would have packaged cookies”.
Despite the nursery’s efforts to encourage parents to send healthy meals and follow their policy of no nuts, chocolate, pork or unhealthy food, almost every day there would be at least one toddler with biscuits, tinned sausages or cupcakes. Parents’ excuse is often “at least my child is eating”.
Childhood obesity is at epidemic levels in the UAE, bringing an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. About 40 per cent of children in the country are obese or overweight.
Blooming Buds has more than 100 children registered, from the age of one to four.
“Western parents” were more likely to pack healthy snacks and lunches for their children, the nursery said, while “with the Arabic families it is a mix”.
“But the minute you sit with them to explain how important healthy food is for learning and growth, they start reconsidering,” Ms Rahman said.
Nursery staff became so frustrated with the struggle that they contracted Leela’s Lunches to provide healthy organic food.
Food will be free for the first week of Ramadan, then – should parents agree to continue – a fee of Dh1,050 will be introduced.
“We can’t control the parents but we can at least ensure that at the nursery the children are eating healthily,” Ms Rahman said.