Heart Foundation Urges Parents to Scrutinize 'Lunchbox Friendly' Labels
As the school year is set to resume, the Heart Foundation, Australia’s leading heart health charity, is urging parents to scrutinize food labels and be wary of potentially deceptive marketing strategies. These tactics may exploit parents’ intentions to provide healthy meals for their children.
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The Heart Foundation is advocating for the Health Star Rating system to be compulsory on all food items to simplify the process of selecting healthier options. Jemma O’Hanlon, the foundation’s senior food and nutrition advisor, highlighted the ambiguity of the term ‘lunchbox friendly’. She warned that without proper regulation, products labeled as such may not be heart-healthy.
O’Hanlon said, “Parents no doubt read ‘lunchbox friendly’ food options as being healthy, allergy-friendly, or suitable for children, yet there’s no clear definition of what lunchbox friendly means. It could just refer to the size of the food that will fit into a lunchbox. Many parents might interpret these marketable terms as an indication that the product meets strict health criteria, but in reality, they don’t.”
To ensure optimal heart health, the Heart Foundation suggests that parents should aim to fill their children’s lunchboxes with whole foods. O’Hanlon also encouraged parents to make eating a fun experience for their children by serving food in different ways. She explained that children are more likely to eat fruit when it’s cut into bite-sized pieces that they can easily pick up and eat.
O’Hanlon added, “Don’t be too disheartened if the food comes home in the lunchbox. It’s normal and part of the journey of exposing your child to different foods. Kids naturally go through different stages in their lives including fussy eating. Studies have shown it can take over 10 times of offering a food before a child may accept it, so keep offering gently, without pressuring.”
For heart-healthy lunchbox additions, O’Hanlon recommends fresh sandwiches made with wholemeal bread, lean protein fillings such as chicken, fish, egg, or falafel, ‘pick me platter’ style lunches with finger foods such as avocado, tomatoes, cucumber, carrot or celery sticks with cheese cubes, a tub of yogurt as a source of calcium, fruit salad, and a frozen water bottle.
