Eating healthily is a challenge for the whole family – we want to enjoy our food but calorie counting and diets seem to take over. National Lunchbox Week is here to make our lives slightly easier and our lunches healthier and more enjoyable.

Background

September 2007 saw the new standards for school food legislation, announced by the Schools Food Trust (SFT) in May 2006, legally enforced in schools.  However this is only part of the debate. Healthy eating starts at home with the family - according to the SFT less than 45% of primary and secondary school pupils eat school meals*, resulting in more that half of all school children relying on lunchboxes and food from home.

National Lunchbox Week

National Lunchbox Week (w/c 1 September) has been set up by pioneering healthy snack manufacturer Sun Valley to support parents, and offer advice and ideas to help them move away from fried and fatty snacks such as crisps and chocolate and find healthy and tasty products for adults and children.

Jonathan Barr from Sun valley commented; “More than four billion lunchboxes were eaten in the 12 months ending in November 2006 ** by everyone from primary school children to office workers, but it’s children’s lunchboxes that particularly get scrutinised.  However we believe the best way to teach children is to lead by example, so National Lunchbox Week is about more than just children, it’s about supporting everyone’s diet and helping to make eating healthily an easier and more enjoyable experience.”

He continues:  “Working with Anita Bean, nutritionist and author of ‘Healthy Eating for Kids’, we’re able to offer families a few suggestions for healthy lunchboxes to suit all age groups so you can be sure you’re eating well.”

With so many guidelines, recommendations, reduced fat and diet products it’s easy to get swamped down and confused about what’s healthy, what’s not and what should find its way into your lunchbox.  Is a can of diet pop healthy because it’s diet? Surely flavoured water are healthy, you can’t go wrong with water? Potatoes are vegetables, does that make a packet of crisps one of my five-a-days? National Lunchbox Week hopes to help families find the answers.