The lunch box: Parents worry about their children’s desire to have junk food

Juggling between the kitchen and children’s bedroom, Pratima is making every second count. She begins rolling out paranthas for her children’s two lunch boxes. What would go into it was decided the previous evening at the dinner table. There is no time for such discussions in the morning.

Pratima spreads two paranthas with jam, and folds them into one box. This is for her son. The other two paranthas go into the second box, but with aalo sabzi, for her daughter as she told her last night. Into a third box, she quickly slices a portion of papaya. This fruit box is also for her son, and he is supposed to eat it during a mid-morning recess.

She rushes back to bedroom to find her son still sleeping. There is no more time to waste. From virtually carrying him into the bathroom to make him brush his teeth to putting him into the school uniform, she does it all. About this time, her husband wakes up. She hands the boy to him, and goes back to the kitchen to put breakfast on the table.

At the table, her daughter happily munches on the cornflakes, but leaves the milk untouched. Her son is still trying to catch a few winks. She struggles to make her son eat, but he does not, because last night, he had wanted pasta in lunch box, to which Pratima did not agree. After a promise that he will get pasta in the evening, he agrees to drink a half glass of milk.

“My daughter does not make a fuss about eating. She knows her tiffin will be checked by her teacher so she asks me to put sabzi, but Aryan (the son) wants pasta, Maggie, which his friends bring sometimes,” says Pratima. After her kids leave for school with her husband, she gets ready to head to work.

“Children get choosy. More than anything else, they want to know what goes in their tiffin next morning, which sets the children’s mood for the day,” says Devika Sharma, whose three-year-old son studies in Manav Mangal Smart School, Mohali. “When I say fruits, the smile disappears.”

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With a wide array of well-advertised food choices, the child’s palate has become hard to please. Parents say that children’s fussy eating habits are learnt from television advertisements — from 2-minute noodles to pasta to French fries, they know what they want, in which flavour, which brand. And they want it now.

A 2010 survey by PGI’s department of Super Specialty of Gastroenterology on schoolchildren in Chandigarh found 15 per cent obesity. The study, conducted among 1,500 schoolchildren, revealed that 40 per cent of the obese children had liver diseases, 15 per cent had blood pressure disorders and 5 per cent suffered from gall bladder diseases.

As concerns grow about what the World Health Organisation calls “globesity”, or global epdemic of obesity, over the years both school management and parents have become more conscious of what goes into the school lunch box. Many schools have banned sales of “junk food” in their canteens, require parents to include fruit in lunch boxes, and conduct routine checks to find out what the lunch box contains.

Some weeks ago, the Chandigarh Commission for Protection of Child Rights (CCPCR) put out an advisory asking schools to impose a ban on sales of food items such as chips, fried foods, carbonated beverages, ready-to-eat noodles, pizzas, burgers, potato fries and confectionery items, chocolates, candies, samosas and bread pakoras in school canteens. It has also directed them to issue circulars to parents not to send junk food in tiffin boxes.

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Dr Nancy Sahni, dietician at PGI, defines junk food as “all food items that create junk in the body”.

Such food items have no micro-nutrients, are low on nutrition and high on calories, trans-fats and sodium. Junk food gives the eater an energy burst, but has very low nutritional value. While most junk food is “fast food”, not all fast food is junk food.

But even if parents know that the difference between healthy food and junk food, most say it is an uphill task convincing their children.

“My son will happily eat tiffin if I give him sandwiches with sauce or bread pakoras or paranthas with sauce/jam, but if I give chapati-sabzi, his face scrunches up into a scowl. Sometimes, we have to complain to teachers about their eating habits, and only then they eat,” says Pinky Chopra, whose seven-year-old son studies at Saupins School, Sector 32.

The typical Tricity lunch box consists of two paranthas deftly packed with sabzi in one box, or rolled up in jam. Several schools ask children to bring two tiffin boxes, one of which must contain sliced fruits and other home-made food.

WHO, which said in a report earlier this year that global rates of childhood obesity are taking on alarming proportions, recognises the adverse impact of advertising and marketing on food choices. It leads to related problems such as peer pressure on what children want to eat.

Comparing school tiffins with friends and asking mothers to pack what they see in their friends’ boxes is commonplace.

“Children make a lot of comparison. My son would sometimes complain, ‘Mamma, aaj mera dost pasta leke aaya tha’. And, then I have to make him understand that his friend will not become as strong as healthy as him and he should tell this to his friend as well, but they will still compare,” says Dimpy, talking about her 10-year-old son who studies at St Anne’s Convent School, Sector 32.

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Parents highlight that checking of tiffins in school helps, as children listen more attentively to teachers than their parents for the fear of being scolded or punished in school. A number of schools in the Tricity now have a 10-minute recess called fruit break in the morning around 9.30, when they are required to eat their first tiffin which has sliced fruits, before the 30-minute lunch break at noon when they eat their second tiffin.

“We get notes from teachers, if we forget to give fruits, or give junk food like Maggi instead of healthy food,” says Rekha whose sons study in Class II in St Xaviers School.

But as a result of the craving for high sodium foods among children, even schools make a concession and allow parents to pack such food items once a week.

The crucial role of parents cannot be done away with. Parents very often give in to their stubborn children rather than demonstrate some tough love, which can lead to scenes and tears.

But Monica Joshi, a housewife, whose son studies in Class V at Mount Carmel School, Sector 47, says parents have to take responsibility for inculcating healthy food habits in children.

“Sometimes, both parents are working and it gets difficult to give time to children, so they give what is easy to cook or give money to buy something from the canteen. It should be avoided. I wake up early and prepare food for my children and now they have formed the habit of eating sabzi-roti and do not complain,” she says.

With stubborn children often bringing back uneaten lunch boxes, parents highlight that they have no option but to experiment with food according to changing times. And such experiments have led to the discovery of ‘junk food made at home’.

“Children are not bothered about what is healthy and what is not. As parents, we have to present them with healthy food in an innovative way. So, when my son complains, I give him daal-panratha, egg-sandwich or make junk food at home,” says Arushi who has two children, a nine-year-old daughter and a seven-year-old son.

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Whether it’s burgers, sandwiches or whole-wheat pasta, many parents think making fast food at home instead of getting it from outside is a win-win situation.

A software engineer, Devika Sharma says her trick of ‘a surprise’ has worked in her favour several times. “I experiment with twists like pizza parantha or paneer pasta. When I tell him it’s a surprise, my son beams with joy,” she laughs.

Dr Sahni of PGI, too, says preparing fast food at home is relatively safer and parents can allow it once in a week, but adds words of caution that even this has to be an occasional treat rather than a daily diet.

“Parents should draw a line and allow children to have fast food but only once in a while. Give it to them on special occasions, when they feel they have earned it. But do not make it a habit,” she says.

Welcoming the step taken by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) to issue an advisory to schools to avoid fast food in canteens and school tiffins, Dr Sahni says children will learn better, if they are taught good eating habits in elementary school. But she emphasises that with changing times, it is important that parents also evolve accordingly.

“Parents have to become innovative. They should explore food options and work on presentation of food. Instead of blatantly saying no to a child’s demand for fast food, they can experiment by adding healthy elements to it. For example, a burger with fresh vegetables or whole-wheat pasta with vegetable and garlic is good. They should make sauces at home from vegetables, instead of purchasing readymade sauce from outside. Poha, upma, kaathi roll, paneer chapati, vegetable idli are good options,” she says.

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