easy child's school has only water, juice and gatorade in the machine. No candy machines. No cafeteria food. It is 100% peanut free (and strongly enforced). They have encouraged treats without packaging (environment reason but also to help parents convince kids to avoid things like Dunkaroo's, etc). They do NOT get to put garbage into the school bins. They must replace everything into their bags and return home with it (which also ensures parents KNOW what parts of their lunches and snacks they actually eat). No child for any reason can share their food or drinks, nor can students trade items (again, to ensure parents know what their child consumes).
This year easy child's school is introducing "Nutrition Breaks". This has been in other schools in the district but only this year is easy child's school changing over. Instead of a morning recess (15minutes), a 45 minute lunch and a 15 minute afternoon recess, they will now get 2 Nutrition Breaks, each lasting 40-45 minutes. There is NO eating outside. Period. We will now pack 2 seperate "mini lunches". This allows kids 2 opportunities to properly fuel themselves through the day. The first 15-20 minutes of each break is to eat, the other portion is for activity outdoors. I am LOVING this idea. My cousins son has had this at his school for several years and they all swear by it. The kids normally as it was, with 2 short recesses, basically take 5 minutes dawdling to grab outside shoes, coat etc. Maybe 5 minutes play time outside, then line up to go back in, put inside shoes on, hang coat, and back at their desk to continue. There was no time for snacks or drinks, not that it was allowed during outside time anyhow. Then they wanted to run and play at lunch break so badly, they barely scarfed down a few bites of food, and headed outside. easy child always came home too hungry to wait for dinner, and would spoil her appetite. Then by bedtime, she was super hungry again. And for easy child, who packs on weight if not very careful, eating at bedtime is something I want to avoid.