Labour has cracked down on toddlers eating birthday cake, advising schools and nurseries to serve ‘fruit platters’ instead to ‘promote healthy eating habits’.
Guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) recommends parents are discouraged from bringing in sweet treats to mark their child’s big day.
The early years nutrition advice, which came in this term, recommends pupils come in with fresh fruit – or even without any celebratory food at all.
It suggests students could hand out non-edible favours instead, such as stickers or bottles of bubbles.
And the party-pooping policy has now been blasted for taking the focus away from bigger public health challenges the UK is facing.
Shadow health secretary Stuart Andrew told the Telegraph the guidance is ‘performative’ and ‘petty’.
‘Blaming birthday cake is just a distraction that does nothing to fix the system,’ he said.
‘Families don’t need the state policing party food, they need leadership that takes public health seriously.’
Guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) recommends parents are discouraged from bringing in sweet treats to mark their child’s big day. Pictured: File photo
The DfE document for Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) reads: ‘Many families like to celebrate their child’s birthday and other special events by bringing in a cake or sweets to the setting to share.
‘This can mean that some children are eating these unhealthy foods several times a week.
‘The food and nutrition policy could include recommendations for special events to ensure any food brought in from home is balanced and meets the setting’s food guidelines (for example recommending fruit platters to share or non-edible options to celebrate with such as bubbles or stickers).’
The guidance adds it is key parents are told about this new approach so they are ‘informed and involved in supporting healthy eating habits at early years settings’.
It is understood one primary school wrote to parents to say the guidance meant it was not allowed at all to give pupils cake or sweets on birthdays anymore.
School bosses instead recommended parents send their children in with treats like a book, fruit, bubbles or stickers.
And several specific institutions have explicitly been identified as falling in line with the guidance.
Hillcross Primary School in Morden, Surrey, has banned students from sharing out cake for fears of losing its ‘healthy school status’.
Staff also expressed concerns about lacking sufficient time to dole the treats to classes.
It was recommended parents instead send their children in with a book for the class library, a game for the wet play box or an item from the school’s Amazon wishlist.
Similarly, in the Harrow area of northwest London, Roxbourne Primary School has forbidden cake to promote healthy eating.
Bosses said it also helps avoid issues with allergies or dietary requirements.
They suggested pupils could instead bring in stationery for the class or a book for the school library.
Meanwhile, at Tufnell Park Primary School, in the north of the capital, teachers have swapped out cake for gestures like songs, cards and hats.
Belmore Primary School in Hayes, west London, characterised cake as a health and safety risk – instead letting pupils wear their own clothes on their birthday.
And classes at Springfield Primary School in Rowley Regis, West Midlands, are also going without cake.
It has been banned, staff said, for dietary, religious, medical, allergen and personal choice reasons.
Former Conservative MP Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said his own children are sent into school with cake, which he enjoys any surplus of himself.
He dubbed it an innocent joy, with its removal the mark of a nanny state.
Parents have also taken to social media and online forums to express their outrage at the policy.
One mother wrote: ‘I would be fuming if my children’s nursery had done that. How pathetic can you get?
‘We need to educate parents and children in healthy eating but forbidding cake and sweets is beyond your pay grade.
‘They go through kids’ lunch boxes now and confiscate what they deem to be unhealthy. We are becoming a nanny state.’
Another said: ‘Sadly for some children they may never get a birthday cake due to complexities at home.
‘So I don’t see any harm in using your discretion and celebrating the children who would never experience their special day. A one-off treat!’
Someone else commented: ‘Ridiculous! Let kids be kids. They can have a bit of birthday cake.’
It comes after nanny state accusations were also levelled at this government earlier this year over another aspect of its healthy eating policies.
Plans announced in June revealed food businesses must now make it easier for customers to buy healthy food.
The government will be working with supermarket and food manufacturers in England to encourage people to make their weekly shop more nutritious.
How exactly retailers do that will be left up to them – but it could involve adapting store layouts and incentivising healthy food via promotions or loyalty points.
The plans could even go as far as to involve changing products themselves to make them healthier.
And in a bid to create greater accountability, stores will report on sales of healthy food, measured against targets agreed between industry and government.
Ministers hope the proposals will make healthy eating easier and bring down obesity rates.
They are one of several public health initiatives part of the ten-year plan for the NHS in England.
But the shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately described the intervention as an example of a nanny state.
She told Sky News: ‘Telling people what to buy, I think, is not up to government. I believe in personal responsibility.’
The DfE has been contacted for comment.