Lunchbox differences in decile 1 and decile 10 schools

[costello22]

http://www.3news.co.nz/Lunchbox-differences-in-decile-1-and-decile-10-schools/tabid/817/articleID/269617/Default.aspx

I guess I'm a little confused by this story. Do schools in New Zealand not provide any lunches? If a kid doesn't bring a lunch to school, does he or she just not eat at all?

Anyway the 'healthy' lunches in this video didn't look all that healthy to me.

[leemack]

I'm confused over the relevance of 'decile 1' and 'decile 10' schools.

[fetch]

"The socioeconomic decile indicates the socioeconomic status of the school's catchment area. A decile of 1 indicates the school draws from a poor area; a decile of 10 indicates the school draws from a well-off area.[5] The decile ratings used here come from the Ministry of Education Te Kete Ipurangi website and from the decile change spreadsheet listed in the references. The deciles were last revised using information from the 2006 Census.[6] The roll of each school changes frequently as students start school for the first time, move between schools, and graduate. The rolls given here are those provided by the Ministry of Education, and are based on figures from August 2013.[7] The Ministry of Education institution number links to the Te Kete Ipurangi page for each school."

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_schools_in_the_Auckland_Region

[costello22]

I'm confused over the relevance of 'decile 1' and 'decile 10' schools.

I'd never heard of it before either. I gather it has to do with how well off they are. [ETA: Thanks for the info, fetch. You posted while I was typing.]

I read some of the comments, and some people were talking about 'tuck shops' where the kids can buy food. I don't know if they're cafeterias or just snack bars. I'm realizing I know nothing about New Zealand.

Anyway when I first watched the video, I thought the healthy lunches were the unhealthy ones. They didn't look all that healthy to me. Tons of bread and chips.

And there's so much discussion of fruit, both in the video and the comments. Fruit is apparently the epitome of healthy eating in New Zealand. :)

[fetch]

I guess I'm a little confused by this story. Do schools in New Zealand not provide any lunches? If a kid doesn't bring a lunch to school, does he or she just not eat at all?

Doesn't sound like it. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10780877

[costello22]

Doesn't sound like it. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10780877

I looked up 'tuck shop' which I'd never heard of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuck_shop

I guess it varies from school to school as to whether it sells only snacks or more substantial food. I'm surprised that school lunches aren't provided. The commenters complain that poor people are too lazy to pack a lunch or are wasting all their money on cigarettes and alcohol. I was a single working mom, and I think it would have been difficult to find the time to assemble a lunch every morning. I'm glad the school provided a hot meal. I hope, though, that if there hadn't been a school lunch, I wouldn't have sent my kid off with a bag of chips and can of pop.

ETA: The editorial you link to discusses free lunches. A school lunch doesn't have to be free. I always paid for my son's lunches.

[leemack]

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_schools_in_the_Auckland_Region

Thanks for that :thup:

[M Levac]

Oh my, that is a serious problem. I see two problems actually. One is: poverty -> malnutrition -> learning difficulty. The other is the application of the solution to this first problem: Low-fat dogma.

For the first problem, I wrote a piece more than a year ago on my blog titled The Fallacy of Accidental Meritocracy. It's a problem of chicken-or-the-egg. For those kids to receive opportunity and support, they must first prove their merit. But to prove their merit, they must first receive opportunity and support to develop this merit. So, the obvious solution is to give opportunity and support from the start to every kid, so they can develop merit, and receive more opportunity and support based on the merit they developed. Feeding those kids seems like a good idea here.

For the second problem, well that's a problem of dominating paradigm. Low-fat is king. And I wrote another piece just recently which should fix that. You see, the person who designed kids' school lunch is advocating for the kids' benefit, it's an advocacy group. This works fine if the advice is correct, but since low-fat is king, and since we know low-fat is pretty bad advice, the advice is bound to fail at some point. In comes my idea, with a devil's advocate, who keeps low-fat in check, by offering all known effective alternatives, including low-carb. So in the video above, instead of just fruits and grains, we'd also get a typical representation of low-carb like chicken and veggies, meat and cheese, fish and greens, etc.


http://wannagitmyball.blogspot.ca/2012/03/fallacy-of-accidental-meritocracy.html

http://wannagitmyball.blogspot.ca/2013/09/paradigm-vii-medical-paradigm-devils.html

[M Levac]

Hehe, look at this: http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=455661

Big breakfast for kids, so they aren't preoccupied with food so much, so they can focus more on learning. Works for me.

[jmh]

Hi, I'm in New Zealand.

Schools have never provided lunches, which is why there is an expectation that parents will provide it. Tuck shops are just little stores selling extra food like sweets, pies and cakes. Schools don't have kitchens and lunch rooms, so any food sold or provided free has to be ready to eat.

Decile 1 schools are usually in poor areas and get more government funding than the decile 10 schools where parents are better off. My mum in Principal in a decile 1 school. Her school provides at least one piece of fruit a day to the children. Some kids receive free breakfasts which consists of toast and cereal. As Principal mum restricts the sales of sweets, crisps etc in the tuck shop and makes sure that healthy food is available, but many schools don't.

Some parents give their kids money to take to school. They either buy pies and fizzy drinks on the way to school or at the tuck shop (or both).

She believes it is more likely to be lifestyle factors rather than poverty than sees kids at school without food. Yes they are poor, but it doesn't cost much to put wheatbix on the table, and many of the parents are on state benefits which, while not generous, are available. Some families will have two working parents doing shifts so there is little time to prepare packed lunches every day. In some communities here it is normal for older children to look after younger children, so that can lead to problems. There is a minority of parents whose lifestyles are precarious as a result of illegal immigration, drug and alcohol abuse and flexible family arrangements.

We have a tug between the left and right here. Some believe the state should step in and feed them, others that the state shouldn't tell people what to eat (while recommending a low fat diet :rolleyes: ).

Like the rest of the Western world there is a belief that fruit and cereals are healthy so the aim is to increase their intake of these. It will come as no surprise to people here that NZ now figures in the top 5 on the global obesity league table.

[jmh]

By the way, I understand that in some strange parts of the world people are not familiar with meat pies. When I refer to pies above usually it is a meat pie, although fruit pie are also available. Here's a meat pie:

http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/uploaded_images/meatpie9-721048.JPG

[fetch]

costello - The point of the link was to verify NZ does not have a National School Lunch Program like the US, that is all. Free, subsidized, or otherwise.

[costello22]

By the way, I understand that in some strange parts of the world people are not familiar with meat pies. When I refer to pies above usually it is a meat pie, although fruit pie are also available. Here's a meat pie:

That was going to be my next question: pie? You anticipated me. :) I hear 'pie' and I picture cherry pie.

I lived in the Virgin Islands for a while, and they sold pies like that. I don't think them pie, though.

[costello22]

costello - The point of the link was to verify NZ does not have a National School Lunch Program like the US, that is all. Free, subsidized, or otherwise.

I understood. I guess I was kind of responding to the article and the comments about after it. The assumption seemed to be that a school lunch would be free for the families.

[costello22]

We have a tug between the left and right here. Some believe the state should step in and feed them, others that the state shouldn't tell people what to eat (while recommending a low fat diet :rolleyes: ).

Isn't that the way it is everywhere? :)

Like the rest of the Western world there is a belief that fruit and cereals are healthy so the aim is to increase their intake of these.

Here I hear more about vegetables and whole grains.

It will come as no surprise to people here that NZ now figures in the top 5 on the global obesity league table.

One of the things that struck me in looking at the video is how lean the kids look compared to the kids I see here.

[RawNut]

That meat pie looks like a pot pie without the veggies to me.

[Rosebud]

That meat pie looks like a pot pie to me.
It's smaller than a pot pie. (I'm presuming a "pot pie" is for the whole family?)
Here in Australia and New Zealand the good old meat pie is a single serve - commonly eaten at the footy. Can be eaten as a pie floater, usually only in Adelaide as far as I know - that's in a bowl of mushy peas. And is always served with plenty of *dead 'orse. :D

*Rhyming slang for tomato sauce, which is Australian and New Zealandish for ketchup.

[Rosebud]

Going back to the OP, schools don't provide lunches here in Australia either. Most kids take a packed lunch, but lunch can be, and often is, bought at the "tuck shop". (Tuck or tucker means food.) Most schools make an effort to serve "healthy" lunches such as salad rolls. That's Australian for a long bread roll with cold meat or chicken and lots of salad. ;)

When I was a school kid - many, many moons ago - we didn't have a tuckshop until I was in about Grade 4 or 5. We either brought our own sandwiches and fruit, or bought fish 'n chips from the nearby fish shop. And once a week the pie man came to the school and we'd almost all have a pie for lunch. Ah, memories...

[teaser]

I sort of thought those lunches looked like the kids were given lunch money and chose them themselves.

When I was a kid, we were on welfare, and a lot of my friends were as well. The idea that all those parents (read: moms, probably) would make no attempt to supply their kids with lunch struck me as rubbish.

[Elizellen]

And is always served with plenty of *dead 'orse. :D

*Rhyming slang for tomato sauce, which is Australian and New Zealandish for ketchup.
I was imagining the recent scandal over here in Europe, where many "beef" products were found to contain horse meat!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/9892276/Horse-meat-found-in-Ikea-meatballs.html

[costello22]

It's smaller than a pot pie. (I'm presuming a "pot pie" is for the whole family?)

All the pot pies I've seen are individual size. You can't carry them around in your hand, though. I'm assuming you can with the pies you're referring to if kids buy them to eat while walking to school.

[leemack]

All the pot pies I've seen are individual size. You can't carry them around in your hand, though. I'm assuming you can with the pies you're referring to if kids buy them to eat while walking to school.

Yes, the pie is encased in thick enough pastry that it can be held.

[jmh]

I reckon a meat pie was probably not that unhealthy in the old days. Meat, gravy and pastry. Fatty so it fills you up. Now of course they are probably all made with processed oils and filled with all sorts of other chemicals.

How to eat a meat pie:

http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/images/uploadedfiles/editorial/pictures/2013/03/04/sspie1.jpg

[costello22]

They look good actually. If I were a kid in New Zealand, I'd be buying one on the way to school every morning. ;)

[msmum1977]

I'm in Ontario, Canada and we have no lunch program in our school either or a lunch room/cafeteria - or even any place to buy food (no vending machines or shops to buy chips NOTHING). Kids are not allowed to leave school property at lunch unless accompanied by an adult. Thus, every student must bring their own lunch. Now our OWN parent council supplies donated items day to day in case a child forgets their lunch (there is a small fridge in the school office). I believe there is a choice of a couple types of sandwiches, cheese, fruit, granola bars and/or crackers and drink boxes or milk. If a child seems to have a LOT of 'forgets' (read: family is having financial difficulty) there is some basic funding given to the school to allow that child to eat from the donate pool every day. My kids have only had to eaten once each - because of a forgotten lunch. My daughter was very angry at the turkey and ham sandwich selections. She wanted peanut butter (which is banned in our schools) :) Try explaining to a five year old, it's not a restaurant and she was lucky to have lunch at all !!! :lol: