What’s really in your kid’s lunch box?

You know the morning drill: the bathroom run, the breakfast—and then your kid’s lunch, packed in a box. It is the last thing you probably hand over as they leave home, and maybe the most important. The only thing more important than the lunch box itself is what’s in it. “It isn’t just a bit […]

You know the morning drill: the bathroom run, the breakfast—and then your kid’s lunch, packed in a box.

It is the last thing you probably hand over as they leave home, and maybe the most important.

The only thing more important than the lunch box itself is what’s in it.

“It isn’t just a bit of what the entire family eats that they go out with,” says John Azu, father of two nursery-school-age children.

“We take time to prepare something different just for them to take to school—mostly noodles and eggs, rice, even when that’s not what the rest of us want to eat.”

Noodles command a large share of kids’ food market, right next to ever ubiquitous biscuits, juices and fizzy drinks.

But just because they are readily available doesn’t mean your little ones should be wolfing them down every lunch time at school.

“For the early years, you are not looking at just education, you are looking at care and development,” says Emem Opashi, an early childhood development expert and chief of Student Resource Centre.

“And if the child is not fed the proper nutritious food in early years, they are not properly nurtured.”