"My daughter Peyton’s teachers are the sugar Nazis..."

Why teachers are telling parents what to feed their children, even when it isn’t their responsibility

"At some schools, monitoring student diets has become part of the job description. Whether they’re sending notes home to suggest healthy alternatives to cheese strings and yogurt tubes, or simply confiscating foods they see as unfit for snack-time consumption, educators are policing nutrition. In September, the Toronto Star reported that teachers in Durham, Ont., had outlawed granola bars, Goldfish crackers and other snacks due to concerns over nutritional content. And it’s not just happening in Durham.

“My daughter Peyton’s teachers are the sugar Nazis,” says Cheryl Brown, a mother of three in Victoria, B.C. “They’re always going on about ‘sugar this and sugar that’ and they told the kids they can no longer buy juice from the drink machine – that sits in the school’s foyer. It’s all very confusing and frustrating for parents.”

In the last decade, parents have increasingly found themselves facing public scrutiny around all things food-related. Did they breastfeed exclusively? Make their own baby food? Fail to cut every grape in half at preschool snack-time? Now, it’s the contents of kids’ school lunches that are making headlines, leaving parents to wonder where these new food rules are coming from – and to what extent they need to be followed."