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Innovate - hot lunch provider
Please help us to keep all children and staff members safe. Avoid bringing nuts, nut butters and treats containing nuts, Nutella, peanut butter and/or any other items containing nuts to Oakridge School.
Healthier Lunch Boxes
At Oakridge we aim to support families and our community in every way possible. It is very important for any child’s physical and cognitive development that they receive a healthy and balanced diet. The guide below might help you identify what a balanced diet consists of.
At school we are working hard to ensure pupils know more about where the food they eat comes from and how to read food labels and classify food into groups. It is in the best interest of your child and their long-term health if they learn to eat well and enjoy healthy food from a young age.
Research conducted by the Food Standards Agency indicated that children who take a packed lunch to school are eating far too much fat, saturated fat, salt and sugar in one meal.
Therefore, we would like parental support in improving the quality and variety of pupils’ packed lunches.
Promoting healthier lunch boxes can:
- encourage pupils’ interest in making healthier choices about their diet;
- support the Department of Education’s nutritional standards for school lunches;
- encourage a whole school approach to healthy eating;
- increase the contact between school and home;
- support your school’s community links;
- give parents relevant information on aspects of food and health.
Every meal a school-age child eats should contain either a piece of fruit or vegetable (or, even better: both), carbohydrates (bread, pasta, rice, potato…), protein (pulses, meat, fish, eggs…) and some dairy (plain yogurt, milk, cheese…). However, we do understand food allergies, intolerances as well as cultural and family beliefs play a big part in childrens food choices.
As a school we would like your help to improve your child’s health by:
- Only sending water to school for your child to drink.
- Reducing the frequency your child eats crisps and biscuits in and out of school.
- Keep chocolate bars and pastries as treats to be eaten on the weekends.
Together we can all improve the health and outcomes of all Oakridge children!
Below are some uselful links and a story in Power Point format about healthier lunch choices.
Thank you very much for your continuous cooperation.
Oakridge Food Technology Team
https://www.publichealth.hscni.net/sites/default/files/Healthier%20Lunch%20Boxes.pd
https://www.publichealth.hscni.net/sites/default/files/Healthier%20Lunch%20Boxes.pdf
https://www.nhs.uk/change4life/recipes/healthier-lunchboxes#lunchbox-recipes