Energy Match: lunch that fits their morning

The score is a weighted sum of three components, and every part of it is visible in the output so you can argue with it. Activity contributes up to 40 points: 25 for a low morning, 55 for a medium morning and 85 for a high one. Sleep contributes up to 30 points at ten points per hour above three hours, so eight hours of sleep scores 50 points and contributes 15. Breakfast contributes up to 30 points: 20 for nothing, 50 for a quick breakfast and 85 for a full one.

With the default inputs of medium activity, eight hours of sleep and a quick breakfast, the three components produce 22, 15 and 15 points, which is the displayed score of 52 out of 100. The score then sets the band. Below 40 is a low energy lunch, 40 to 64 is a medium energy lunch, and 65 or more is a high energy lunch. The band is the part that actually changes the plate, because each band starts from a different staple and protein target.

• Low band: 70 g of staple and 40 g of protein, before time and age adjustments.
• Medium band: 90 g of staple and 60 g of protein, the default.
• High band: 120 g of staple and 80 g of protein, for a genuinely active morning.
• Time to lunch then adds 15 g to the staple when the wait is four hours or more, or removes 10 g when lunch is within two hours.

Age scales both numbers at the end. Children under four use 0.70 of the standard amount, ages four to six use 0.85, ages seven to ten use 1.00, ages eleven to thirteen use 1.10, and fourteen and above use 1.15. The calculator prints the factor it used so you can reproduce the arithmetic by hand with a pen, which is the fastest way to catch a typing error in the inputs.

A gram target is only useful if it points at food you can pack. The staple target counts ready to eat grams, and the reference examples are cooked brown rice at roughly 1.1 kcal per gram, cooked pasta at roughly 1.4 kcal per gram, and rolled oats at roughly 3.75 kcal per gram. So a 90 g staple target is about 99 kcal of rice, about 126 kcal of pasta, or about 40 g of oats cooked in milk at about 150 kcal. The protein target counts grams of protein food rather than grams of protein, which is why 60 g means one boiled egg, 60 g of chicken breast or 60 g of tinned tuna.

A workable medium band plate looks like this: 90 g of cooked rice, one boiled egg, a small apple with 60 g of carrot sticks, and 200 ml of milk in a refillable bottle. That lands around 410 kcal, which is a normal school lunch for a child of seven to ten. A low band plate keeps the rice but drops it to 70 g and adds a protein instead of a second snack. A high band plate goes to 120 g of rice, which for many children is easier to eat as 40 g of oats plus a slice of bread rather than a larger mound of rice.

• Pack the staple in a container that keeps it separate from the fruit, or the rice will be soft by midday.
• Cut the protein small. A 60 g piece of chicken breast is a different amount of effort than a sliced 60 g portion.
• Keep the drink unflavoured and the fruit whole where you can; both survive a morning in a bag better than cut pieces.
• Expect leftovers on the low band. A smaller plate that is finished beats a larger plate that comes home half full.

If the child is allergic to something in the reference list, treat the plate as a template rather than a menu and swap in the same calorie range from the food library.

The afternoon risk number answers a narrow question: how likely is a drop in concentration after lunch, given the morning that actually happened. It starts at half of the gap between 100 and your energy score, so a stronger morning lowers the risk. A wait of four hours or more before lunch adds 20 points, because a long gap before food and a long gap after food is what creates the slump. Lunch within two hours removes 10 points, and an afternoon lunch adds 12 points because nap time and homework sit right after the meal.

With the default inputs the risk reads 24 out of 100, which is low, and the advice is to keep the routine stable and send a refillable bottle. A risk of 35 or more turns the advice toward one piece of fruit in the middle of the afternoon, and a risk of 65 or more recommends raising the protein portion, removing the sweet items and adding water instead of juice.

• Use the risk to change the lunch, not to describe the child. The number describes a morning, not a personality.
• Re-run the tool on a school day after a short night and again on a normal weekend day. The difference between the two runs is usually more useful than either number alone.
• A consistently high risk across many days is a signal to look at sleep and breakfast first, because both are quick to change and both sit inside the score.

Keep in mind what this number is not. It is not an attention assessment, it cannot detect any condition, and it says nothing about a child who is thriving on a different pattern than the one you typed in. If there is a persistent medical or dietary concern, that belongs with a pediatrician or a registered dietitian, not with a lunchbox calculator.