Fitness influencer’s lunchbox for 5-year-old son divides followers

A fitness influencer mother has sparked debate over the “minimal” lunchbox she made for her 5-year-old son.

People who share their lives on social media often run the risk of being slammed by their followers if they do something controversial, like the travel influencer who was criticised for going on an Indian “slums tour” and the influencer branded “entitled” for a bad review of a restaurant.

Fitness influencer Sarah Stevenson found herself the topic of debate recently after sharing the “healthy” lunchbox she had put together for her young son in a video on TikTok.

She captioned the clip: “Lets make my 5 year olds healthy lunch box for preschool!”

In the clip she claimed her son’s favourite form of protein is “curried eggs”, which she made with boiled eggs and bone broth mayonnaise.

To the lunchbox, she added cucumber and carrot sticks, a Babybel cheese, “low sugar high protein” berry yoghurt with pumpkin seeds, a five seed cracker with avocado, two gummy sweets and fruit.

“This is everything he eats in a day at preschool,” she explained.

The post left users divided as some questioned whether the lunch was too healthy for a growing child and noted there didn’t appear to be many carbohydrates.

“He must be absolutely starving, where are the carbs?!” one person commented on the TikTok.

Another said: “Where are the tiny teddies and shapes?”

“At some point he’s going to be exposed to normal ‘kid food’ at a party. In a few years he’ll be making decisions on his own when away from you. Your job is to teach about moderation, not withholding it,” another argued.

However, others praised Stevenson for giving her son healthy foods.

Someone wrote: “This is what every lunchbox should look like! No packets, no highly processed foods. Awesome job mumma.”

Sign up for our free indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 ranking