Montana Brown has once again sparked debate over her take on parenting – this time by blasting schools for serving desserts with school lunches. 

The Love Island star, 30, who shot to fame on the show in 2017, has become synonymous with ‘mum-shaming’ due to her vocal views on parenting, including her ban on screen time for son Jude, two, and Miley, 14 months. 

Her latest TikTok posts saw the star slam schools for ‘serving sticky toffee pudding every day’ and alleged children were also given biscuits at break time, thus normalising the exposure to ‘addictive’ sugar and ultra processed foods. 

Much like her previous videos about parenting, the reaction was furious with followers claiming she is ‘demonising’ sugar while many others flagged that for children living in poverty the food could be their ‘only hot meal of the day’. 

Dani Dyer joined the outcry, insisting her five-year-old son receives balanced meals at school, while Professor Green was defensive of Montana, claiming she was being ‘unnecessarily punished’ for her ‘light-hearted remark’.

Montana Brown has once again sparked debate over her take on parenting – this time by blasting schools for serving desserts with school lunches

The Love Island star, 30, who shot to fame on the show in 2017, has become synonymous with ‘mum-shaming’ due to her vocal views on parenting, including her ban on screen time for son Jude, two, and Miley, 14 months, whom she shares with fiancé Mark O’Connor 

Montana was accused of encouraging disordered eating

Montana, who shares her children with fiancé Mark O’Connor, has frequently shared outrageous comments online, including blasting parents for using pre-made food pouches alongside her screen time comments. 

Her latest remarks – this time surrounding school meals saw her say to the camera: ‘Why do children need desserts every day at school? Like why do they need a sticky toffee pudding every day?…

‘That would be strange if you went to work and one of your colleagues was like tucking into a sticky toffee pudding and like custard every lunch. You’d be like, bit excessive. So why do we do it for kids?…

‘I’m deadset this is why all of us have weight issues as It’s so difficult to kind of wean yourself off like the sugar and all of this crap because at school it was just the norm…

‘You’d have pudding after pudding after pudding and I am a firm believer that just kids shouldn’t have pudding. They should have yogurt and fruit and if they’re still hungry they should be having extra protein…

‘And I know you guys hate it when I talk about this but this is genuinely how I feel. I’m not even rage baiting.’

When asked why doesn’t she provide a packed lunch, she replied: ‘I couldn’t but then he is the packed lunch kid’, with a laughing emoji. 

Some reaction to her points were positive

Joining the calls against her views, Dani wrote: ‘Santi only gets one pudding a week which is every Friday the rest of the week it is yoghurt/fruit sometimes jelly.. 

‘I think the more we deprive kids of sweet deserts that’s when they then have an ‘unhealthy’ relationship with sugar.’

Teacher and author Lee Parkinson MBE took to Instagram to share a video hitting back at Montana, in which he wrote: ‘Another hot take which completely misses the point, how many of these are we going to do?… 

‘She’s claiming that every day children are eating sticky toffee puddings. They’re not. Because schools have to follow national school standards which means making sure there is fruit and veg included, there is a limit on sugar, and most days that dessert will be fresh fruit, a yogurt, fruit crumble. 

‘The real issue we should be talking about isn’t children getting a pudding at school every day, which will again be portion controlled it’s not help yourself. It’s poverty…

‘There are literally millions of children growing up in poverty, so that hot meal they get everyday at lunch may well be the only hot meal they get every day and as teachers we see the impact of this we see children coming into school hungry and asking for more because when they’re home there’s not as much food for them. 

‘We see the impact it has on concentration when children arent thinking about their maths lesson but thinking about food instead

She was accused of trying to rage bait – a technique used to attract attention online 

Montana has frequently shared outrageous comments online, including blasting parents for using pre-made food pouches alongside her screen time comments

Joining the calls against her views, Dani Dyer wrote: ‘Santi only gets one pudding a week which is every Friday the rest of the week it is yoghurt/fruit sometimes jelly..

When asked why doesn’t she provide a packed lunch, she replied: ‘I couldn’t but then he is the packed lunch kid’, with a laughing emoji

Professor Green, who featured Montana in his 2018 music video for Count On You, responded to the video writing: ‘why does it have to be missing a question or point? why can’t multiple points and questions exist? weird.’ 

Lee replied: ‘Multiple viewpoints absolutely can exist. But when a viewpoint is built on a misunderstanding of what’s actually happening in schools, it’s fair to challenge it.

‘As teachers we’re seeing the reality every day. Children arriving hungry. Some relying on their school meal as the only hot meal they’ll get that day. And we see first-hand how hunger affects concentration, behaviour and learning.

‘So when the public conversation focuses on things like kids supposedly having sticky toffee pudding every day, it misses the bigger context completely just adding the reality that people working in schools see every single day.’

Professor Green countered: ‘what is she misunderstanding?…

‘I grew up with my nan taking vouchers to get my SMA milk and then throughout school on school dinners; chuck in trauma and hugely a dysregulating environment and i understand the impacts on concentration, ability to attend, self esteem etc.

Others claimed she was misinformed, with users writing: ‘There’s not one school in the UK that serves sticky toffee pudding every day’

‘i work with charities that support children in need, and in need around food specifically, but i can’t quite grasp how making a light hearted remark about kids needing a pudding every day is misunderstanding of or missing context whatsoever.

‘it felt unnecessarily punishing, and i doubt that’s what you were going for.’ 

Others threw their support behind the star, writing: ‘I agree with everything she says, I don’t get the hate. What’s wrong with wanting to get the next generation of children away from ultra-processed food?!…

‘I don’t know what people are struggling and fighting to misunderstand. SAY IT AGAIN AND AGAIN MONTANA  Make a video talking about why dessert every day is healthy for kids and no one would bat an eye lid. Keep sharing facts!..

‘I think what peple also don’t get is the serious implications later on. It is a really bad habit and routine to cultivate having a dessert or sweet ‘treat’ (highly processed and unhealthy) every day in their prime years of learning/programming…

‘Very very hard to undo later on. I know of grown adults with chronic metabolic disease and even cancer who cannot change these habits. That cake or buscuit every day will be a main issue later on. It is such a big deal…

‘Children should be eating, adults should be eating, we should ALL be eating nutrient dense meal with none-minimal snacking. If we need a snack or a ‘dessert’ let it be a bit of fruit! No need to have a cake or something that’s caloric, fat and refined sugar count is a higher proportion of the meal consumed.’

Others claimed she was misinformed, with users writing: ‘There’s not one school in the UK that serves sticky toffee pudding every day… 

Teacher and author Lee Parkinson MBE took to Instagram to share a video hitting back at Montana, in which he wrote: ‘Another hot take which completely misses the point, how many of these are we going to do?

Professor Green, who featured Montana in his 2018 music video for Count On You, responded to the video writing: ‘why does it have to be missing a question or point? why can’t multiple points and questions exist? weird.’

Professor Green insisted she was being ‘punished’ for a lighthearted comment 

‘Biscuits at break time ? Which schools are you visiting?… Biscuits at break times? Have we gone back to the 90s? They don’t do that anymore. They have fruit.’

Others insisted Montana was using her videos to attract attention by creating ‘rage bait’, defined as ‘online content (videos, posts, articles) intentionally designed to trigger anger, frustration, or outrage to boost engagement, clicks, and ad revenue’. 

Users wrote: ‘This needs to be rage bait. I 100% believe she knows this is getting mad interaction. ex love islanders trying to stay relevant (impossible edition)’.

Montana shared a follow up video saying: ‘My issue with kids having a sweet dessert regularly at school, I would like to be the one to give Jude sweet treats and if he’s at school five days a week, to me they’re at school from the ages of 5 to 18…

‘Then yeah I do have an issue if he has dessert every day. For me, having sweet every day is unnecasary.  A lot of you are saying my school does fruit and yogurt…

Others insisted Montana was using her videos to attract attention by creating ‘rage bait’, defined as ‘online content (videos, posts, articles) intentionally designed to trigger anger, frustration, or outrage to boost engagement, clicks, and ad revenue’

‘I’d be happy for him to have fruit and yogurt but the schools I’ve seen and looked around, the majority of them are feeding kids sugary stuff for dessert every day and I don’t agree with it….

‘We know sugar is bad, we know it’s so addictive and we know if you give kids the choice of having something sugary for dessert or fruit and yogurt, we know which one they’re going to pick because they don’t have the ability to choose what’s right for them sometimes so that’s my issue with it, it’s not standardised.’

In her next video she went on: ‘I find it so frustrating because the generations are getting sicker and sicker and children are having more chronic illnesses and diseases and part of that is because of the rise in ultra processed foods and the fact that sugar is in everything…

‘When we were looking around schools i genuinely was shocked. One of my friend’s mums, she works in a state school in Harlow and she was saying it’s kind of up to whoever runs that school if they have an interest in nutrition that if it’s something they want to impliment then they can. 

‘So my thing is that every single child deserves nutritious food at school and doesn’t need to be sugary and ultra processed because every single child desevres good nutrition and it’s so important.’