BASINGSTOKE, England – Parents at Basingstoke, England’s King’s Furlong Infant School are fuming over a recent proclamation that “children will no longer be able to have a packed lunch.”

The Basingstoke Gazette reports parents of students at the school received a letter May 15 from administrators informing them that students can no longer eat food from home while at school, period.

“We recognise the impact of diet on the children’s ability to learn and we feel that it is essential that children eat a nutritionally balanced lunch,” the letter read. “Therefore from September 2015 we would like all children in the school to take advantage of the free hot school meal each day.”

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Parent Danielle Alger told The Gazette she was “gobsmacked” by the news and offended that the school plans to remove her discretion over what her child eats.

“I still have parental responsibility and rights over my child. Therefore the choice of what my child eats is down to me,” she said. “That’s a custodial right. It’s not down to the headteacher. She can’t dictate that she can parent my child better than I can.”

Alger also doesn’t think that deciding for parents what students will eat for lunch is helping youngsters understand the importance of nutrition.

“It’s a total infringement of human rights and independent choice. How can they expect children to make choices later in life if they are taking them away from them?” she questioned.

Besides, Alger said, the school food is served in “miniscule portions” and often overcooked. School officials in the letter asked parents to voice any concerns with the change, but headteacher Libby Wyatt has been conspicuously absent from her usual post greeting parents at the gate in the morning, Alger said.

“There was no opinion poll, no options given, we were just presented with a letter stating that she had decided on what happens from September,” the mother said. “It’s immoral in my eyes.”

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Wyatt told The Gazette she decided to end lunches from home after other Basingstoke schools made the change. She said it’s aimed at students who “don’t have access to these types of fruits or vegetables.”

Alger doesn’t think that’s a good enough reason.

“I fully understand that the headteacher is trying to combat the minority of parents who send their child to school with a chocolate spread sandwich but why penalise all of us?” she questioned.

The mandated school lunches in Basingstoke stems from federal rules that require all schools to provide free meals to students aged four to seven that has also caused conflicts in other schools.

Parents of at least six children, representing three families, removed their kids from Milefield Primary School in Barnsley after officials there announced a ban on lunches from home this year, The Daily Mail reports.

Parents in Florida also raised a ruckus when the Kids ‘R’ Kids franchise child care facility attempted to ban packed lunches in 2013 and force all children in its care into the federally funded Child Care Food Program, The Blaze reports.