School 'snack-shames' 3-year-old over chips, sparking mom's outrage: 'That starts eating disorders

Just when you thought peer bullying was the only challenge your child might face in school, a growing concern is how some teachers are contributing to the problem. Reports are emerging of schools confiscating snacks or prohibiting children from eating them if deemed 'unhealthy.' This has sparked outrage among parents, and rightfully so.

Picture this: you wake up in a rush to pack lunch for your child, only for them to return home with a note stating that their lunch is too unhealthy to eat. Recently, Megan Peavey, known as @peaveymegan on TikTok, went viral after calling out her son's school for sending a note home shaming her for packing Pringles.

The snarky message scrawled on her 3-year-old's leftover “trash” urged Peavey to stop sending him “unhealthy” snacks. In the video, which has garnered over 570K views, Megan expressed her shock upon receiving the note. “I sent my son to school with Pringles, which is a very age-appropriate snack for a 3-year-old,” she explained. “And this is what the school sent: ‘Please help us make healthy choices at school.’ They snack-shamed my 3-year-old. They snack-shamed me by writing that passive-aggressively on his trash.”

She further explained that she reached out to the school directly to resolve the matter. She added, “At our house, we do not label things as ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ because that starts eating disorders."

The video quickly went viral on TikTok, prompting Peavey to post a follow-up video where she admitted deleting the original clip to avoid her son being "negatively affected" by it. However, she re-uploaded the video after hearing back from the school. “So I dropped my son off at school today. I checked him in and I saw that the director was there, so I initiated the conversation," she shared.

Peavey stated that the director accused her of being the passive-aggressive one for continuing to pack Pringles in her son's lunch after receiving the note. She explained that when their son first enrolled in the school, parents were asked to pack "healthy" foods for their children, but Pringles didn't seem inappropriate to her.

“I didn’t consider Pringles to be this unhealthy snack,” she explained. “I considered things like Cheetos, Doritos, Milky Way bars, things like that to be an unhealthy snack. So, I would, of course, pack like Pringles with a granola bar, yogurt, fruit, and all that kind of stuff. So I didn’t think it was applicable to me. I didn’t think that those messages applied.”

Peavey added that the school did not apologize for the note; instead, they escalated the situation further. She recounted how things spiraled out of control, resulting in her 3-year-old being removed from their summer program. Despite the drama, she remains confident that she is doing the right thing for her son and his relationship with food.

“We don’t put weight on food in this house. If my kids want a cookie for breakfast, it’s OK, great and nine out of 10 times, they don’t even eat the cookie, but they will focus on that if you say ‘no.’ We don’t say, ‘This is healthy, this is unhealthy,’” she explained. "We don’t want them programmed like that. I have a background in mental health counseling. I am not going to let my kids get a freaking eating disorder because of a school labeling things as ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy.’ That, to me, is unhealthy."

This article was originally published on May 3, 2023. It has since been updated.