Should we stop packed lunches?

Reflections from the Nourishing Our Future research.

The Nourishing Our Future research has given me the time and space to sit with a huge question in the world of early years food and nutrition:

Should we stop packed lunches?

No! Absolutely Not!

I had to move through the initial sadness at what I’d seen across the 500+ photos of packed lunches gathered through the research before I could arrive at an opinion I felt comfortable with.

But deeper insights from the Nourishing Our Future project helped me see the bigger picture, one that reaffirms why we should absolutely not move away from allowing children to bring their own food with them into an early years setting, or even into school.

It’s not what’s in the lunchbox that should concern us most.

It’s why it’s in there…

What the NOF Findings Tell Us:

Our research highlights five core areas that need to be considered in any conversation about food provided from home in early years settings.

1. The Strength of the Early Years Sector Lies in Its Complexity, Diversity and Flexibility

This sector doesn’t conform to a single model, and it shouldn’t. That makes voluntary guidance and statutory frameworks challenging, but it also means it must be tailored, not uniform.

• 57% of preschools only have access to basic food prep facilities, often in community spaces.
• 69% of children bring a packed lunch to preschool morning or afternoon sessions.

‘We are a small preschool in a community centre with a shared (basic) kitchen so we do not have the space, money or resources to provide cooked meals.’ (NOF Preschool).

• 88% of childminders who most often work alone, find children’s increasing food preferences and allergies challenging.
• 62% of food in childminder settings is parent-provided.

‘In the past I have offered meals as well as snacks but changed to snacks only because it was getting increasingly harder to cater to all the children’s likes/dislikes. Being a childminder I have only myself to prepare and clean up after meals, so they had to be simple. It just got too difficult to offer something that everyone would eat.’ (NOF Childminder).

• 97% of day nurseries have access to commercial or domestic kitchen facilities
• 66% of day nurseries have a dedicated employed on-site chef.

‘Our chef cooks all the meal from using fresh/frozen ingredients. He will measure portions needed for each child in the setting. He will introduce new dishes in a creative way for children such as making watermelon basket’. (NOF Day Nursery).

2. Parents Should Be Involved and Supported. Not Removed

Parents are partners in their child’s learning and should be partners in nutrition too. But this isn’t always easy.

‘Early years children bring their own food for lunch. The contents of their lunchboxes vary considerably from one child having home cooked healthy food to another coming with Sausage roll and quavers. There is such a difference in parents’ ideas on food. I think if I had the tools to give the parents in a non-judgmental way that would be great. I really can see the difference physically and mentally in the children that eat healthy and the ones that eat beige food.’ (NOF Childminder).

‘We have 65 staff and over 230 children, so challenges are fairly constant in keeping abreast of everything and meeting all the requests made from parents.  Engaging parents in training can be difficult.’ (NOF Day Nursery).

3. The Food Environment Must Help Families Provide Healthy Packed Lunches

The food environment that we live in should be constructed to fully and wholly support parents in providing a healthy packed lunch. Healthy food should be available, affordable and sustainable for all parents.

Lunchbox contents can be challenging for everyone, but simply replacing them with setting-provided food for one meal a day doesn’t solve the wider issue for the child or their family. What will they eat at the weekend? Or during the holidays? We must listen to everything parents tell us and be ready to offer support. Early Childhood Educators are a frontline service.

‘If healthy food was cheaper, more people would be encouraged to buy.’ (NOF Parent).

‘UPF is killing people’s ability to eat healthy.’ (NOF Parent).  

4. Cultural Diversity in Children’s Lunches Is a Strength to Celebrate

There is a beautiful cultural diversity that can be found in the foods that children eat at home, Home-packed meals can reflect family heritage, traditions, and love. These rich food stories can’t be replicated by commercialised, rotating menus. Lunchboxes can offer young children a link to home that is secure, comfortable and valued.

‘We try to include foods from the heritage background of our children and involve parents in coming up with ideas for meals. So, for example, we had a little girl with a Romanian Mum who cooked a Romanian Moussaka which this little girl loved. We adapted the recipe slightly using Quorn instead of meat and it became a firm favourite on our menu during her time with us.’ (NOF Preschool).

5. Children’s Preferences, Allergies, and SEND Needs Must Be Listened To

Children’s food identities matter. Time together eating and talking about food is important in our every day routines. We need to help children feel included, not different.

‘Over the years children seem to have become more picky with regards to food. This results in a large amount of food waste, and makes it incredibly challenging to provide a healthy balanced range of foods that we can all sit down and eat together.’ (NOF Childminder)

‘I prepare snacks at the table in front of the children so they can see what the foods look like in their original forms and learn the names of them. We also discuss colours and textures while munching.’ (NOF Childminder).

So… Should We Ban Packed Lunches?

If our solution to these challenges is simply to stop allowing lunchboxes or parent-provided meals, then we aren’t addressing the real issues. We’re just moving them out of our line of sight.

What We Should Be Doing Instead:

• 🍊 Make healthy food affordable
• 🍊 Stop flooding supermarket shelves with convenience, HFSS foods targeted at children
• 🍊 Support education and training for practitioners, parents, and children
• 🍊 Fund healthy food as a core part of early years provision
• 🍊 Celebrate the cultural and practical diversity of food in early years settings
• 🍊 Work across organisations, settings, charities, and companies to build a unified and informed approach to food and nutrition in early childhood

Packed lunches are not the problem. They’re a window into a much wider food system and an opportunity to do better, together.

Nourishing Our Future