To be slightly horrified now by what I ate as a kid in the 80s?

Sugar sandwiches for lunch, chip pan chips for tea. We "couldn't afford" fruit, cooked meats were a waste if the children wanted them but fine for parents, and Mars bars were readily available.

I think this is why I'm obsessed with fruit now!

Agree. That is my point. It’s not about obesity - it’s about disease development such as bowel cancer. Rates have rocketed in the under 50s.

There seems to be a lot of criticism of convenience foods here and how Mums were sucked in by advertising based upon convenience and 'goodness'.

What are posters' opinions on the Mumsnet branded microwave meals range in Iceland?

I think this too. Sugary cereal or pop tarts for breakfast, or cheap white bread with loads of syrup. Unlimited chocolate, crisps, pepperoni as snacks, jam sandwiches or paste sandwiches or cheap processed plasticky ham for lunch. Deep fat fried processed foods or microwave pizzas or curries for dinner. I think there’s a reason me and so many of my friends have stomach issues/IBS/diverticulosis/crohns etc.
We weren't short of money either, and my grandparents fed my parents completely differently - all home cooked food, veg and fruits grown in the garden, puddings home made. Limited treats.

I was born in 1983. Breakfast was usually Cornflakes (supermarket own brand) or Weetabix, which we of course added sugar to 😅. Ready Brek in winter. Weetos for a special treat (anyone remember those? Do they still exist?). I hated Sugar Puffs. I loved visiting my cousins because they had all the good cereals: Start, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Pops, Frosties.

Packed lunch: a sandwich, usually ham or cheese with the cheapest white bread (all we could afford). Packet of crisps, small chocolate biscuit (cheap version of a Penguin or similar), yoghurt. Squash in my flask, even though the school dinners kids were only allowed water. We had to take a piece of fruit for morning break, so that was usually an apple or an orange.

After school snack: Maybe a biscuit or crisps if we begged (usual response was"those are for your lunches"). A choc ice if it was warm. Otherwise we could help ourselves to fruit from the bowl.

Dinner: Sausages, chips and beans. Fish fingers chips and beans. Golden Drummers, chips and beans. Crispy Pancakes, chips and beans. Or replace chips with potato waffles and baked beans with peas. Golden Drummers and super noodles. Or a microwave meal - and in those days they were not nice. For years I thought I didn't like macaroni cheese because of the revolting ready meal version. But the particular low point was Micro Chips - literally frozen chips in a box that you stuck in the microwave on high. If my step dad was in charge it was always tuna omelette. My mum ate separately later on, usually salad and a sandwich. On weekends we all ate together then there would be something like "Chicken Tonight", mash and frozen mixed veg or Chicken Tonight with rice, a roast dinner, homemade lasagne, some kind of hot pot or stew, Spaghetti Bolognese, chilli con carne.

Not great food but at least we ate lots of fruit.

I don't understand why your post caused such consternation, OP? I loved reading about your lunch boxes, took me right back. There are often threads about what we ate in the 70s/80s/90s and they're usually nostalgic.

I didn't have lunch packed for me, we didn't have much money and it was all a bit chaotic but that was then, not now.

Sorry that your thread has been derailed by so many. Just wanted to post in support.

Oh and sweets every single day on the way home from school. Every one of my back teeth was filled before I finished school (tooth brushing wasn't a thing in my house) and this was after my baby teeth being removed by the dentist because they were all rotten.

My diet was similar OP. I remember stuff like frybentos meatballs in a can, Finders crispy pancakes, instant mash and for your 'vegetable' you'd have tinned spaghetti hoops.
I would never have fed my own kids shit like this every night. But, my mum is in her mid 80s, no dementia after eating this stuff her whole life and smoking like a chimney.

My 80s childhood diet
Cereal with milk/ yoghurt or dry. I have always hated milk (turns out milk hates me and triggers IBS) or toast.

Traditional school lunch with mash/ plain boiled potatoes and two-veg with a small dessert and small cup of water.

Dinner: spaghetti bolognese if DM was feeling motivated (using schwarz packet mix). More likely to be Fray Bentos pie/ faggots/ Dalepak "steaks" with tinned potatoes and two-veg. Probably tinned. If she really CBA, a tin on toast. Worse case scenario tinned tomatoes on toast which meant a long night until breakfast because plain tinned tomatoes are gross and they ruined the toast making it too acidic and soggy to eat.

The only vegetables I ate were carrots and mushrooms. Mainly because I hadn't met a vegetable that hadn't been boiled into oblivion.

Very few snack options avaliable. Certainly not a routine between meals. I wasn't allowed to take "tuck" to school or have 10p for the tuck shop. Some access to apples/ oranges/ bananas. Strawberries if they were in season. We grew grapes so again, if they were in season. One house had fruit bushes/trees from the the previous owner so there were seasonal fruit pies on Sundays. Triffle was another Sunday treat.

I was always the smallest in the class and very slightly built. But generally pretty healthy.

I wasn't particularly active- hated sports and running, but did a bit of gymnastics and dancing. I did a lot of pottering around though, so there was a lot of gentle movement rather than "exercise:

DM had been a war child so spent the majority of her youth with rationing and her mum was no great cook/ food enthusiast either. In the 60s, Twiggy had the aspirational look so food had always been an uninspiring necessity to be done a few times a day and wasn't a pleasure. In her credit, her mother made it into her 90s and she's well into her 80s, not without niggles, but the essentials for survival are all functioning fine. Where their diets and lifestyles have likely been negatively influential is on osteoarthritis.

I've come out of my childhood with a healthy attitude to nutrition and exercise and am on good form for my age range. I loved getting to university and getting more experimental with food with the widened choice of the late 90s.

I suspect there is a difference between 80s processing of food and current processing. Bread certainly lasts longer without going mouldy now so those kinds of basics have increased in levels of processing. Some ingredients like food colourings have been removed in the UK, but there are more additives such as preservatives and emulsifuers. More foods are modified to be low fat/ sugar which means added additives to make them behave the same way. The range of food/ drink containing artificial sweeteners has also increased significantly. Supermarkets are bigger, but it's not the staple, fresh foods that have increased.

Children were leaner and more active with a better balance of nutrition to their activity then. What has improved is a greater range of fresh veg/ fruit year round (great for more selective eaters like I was), but good quality basics are dearer and it's easier (and cheaper) to have a lot more ultra-processed foods as staples. Snacking culture, eating out and takeaways have increased and it is much easier to eat a surplus of appealling foods now.

There were still a lot of children having traditional diets in the 80s and living healthily on it.

I think we are all (those brought up on convenience food) overall less healthy than our parents. In terms of longevity- so this may come out as diseases/inflammation/poor gut health.

I’m hoping healthy eating as an adult and exercise can offset any damage that was done. But we have seen an increase in many diseases…

I ate coco pops for breakfast my entire childhood - nothing else - similar crap processed food. I was born in 1980. I’m amazed now thinking back - so much sugar - always desserts in school and at home and loads of penny sweets all the time! Surprised I kept my teeth!

What impact do you think it had?

Is this some sort of weird stealth boast OP? I suppose your kids eat olives, quinoa, kale and home baked UPF free bread on the daily?

Lots of kids ate like that in the eighties, I know I did much of the time, and many still do. Sadly this sort of diet is more affordable for many families. Try to be less tone deaf.

And those cereals still sell by the shedload, so they must still be a very popular breakfast to give children

It aint just kids
Cocopops is one of my favorite midnight snack foods at 37 lol

I think the big difference is how much more active kids pre yr2000-ish were.
My mother would have laughed in my face if I’d suggested she drive me to school. We played out, walked or cycled everywhere.
As a child I had a mix of meat/2 veg and the new and exciting UPF foods that became available. But did way more exercise, not that we thought of it as exercise - it was just a means of getting where ever we were going.
Now - I drive my kids to football/swimming/rugby etc and pay for the pleasure!

I’m really not sure we’re in a position to judge. There are kids being given bags of haribo as they come out of school, eating large bars of chocolate as the norm and having McDonald’s / KfC on a regular basis . And that’s with much more education about nutrition. I had a take away probably once or twice a year back in the 80s.

I helped on a brownies evening theatre trip recently. Age 7-9. I was shocked how much crap they had with them (they had already had tea at home) full packed lunches - dairlylea dunkers, cheese strings, big family bags of sweets & crisps. We got them a small pot of vanilla ice cream at interval and lots didn’t eat it, barely registered with them. When I was small going to a show and being bought an ice cream was a big treat.

Early 80s childhood. We had cereal breakfast (not sugary usually weetabix) small bag of crisps at playtime, lunch a ham or dairylea sandwich, choc biscuit and squash. Tea meat and veg and potatoes, pudding jelly and tinned fruit or rice pudding or fruit and custard. Saturday lunch might be beans on toast, Saturday tea was always meat and salad. Sunday roast dinner and toast for tea. Virtually no snacking, a plain biscuit or cream cracker for supper. Fruit was available tangerines, apples or bananas.
But portions were small. Plates small, children’s plates smaller. Things often cut up and shared. My mum is horrified to see toddlers with a big muffin etc. Sweets weekly not daily. No fancy caloric drinks.
Lots of walking, my local school was a mile each way - a nursery age child on half days would do 4 miles a day as having to walk siblings to school too. No pushchairs or scooter.
I can count on one hand meals out I had as a child inc wimpey or McDonalds (birthday parties). Food very rarely bought out - took picnics. Saturday shopping trips have lunch before go. My grandma buying me a gingerbread man in bakers is memorable. No takeaways.
I can’t recall any fat children in primary, just a couple who were a bit plumper.
My mum is nearly 80 and to be honest eats same way. Weetabix, small sandwich and tangerine, cooked meat and veg evening meal. Only drinks tea. She’s been a healthy weight all her life. I’m always struck by her meals if she’s got back late or been away on holiday. Many would grab convenience food or a takeaway but her go to is crumpets or beans on toast the sort of easy Sunday tea we had as children.

I think it’s just how it was then. And as much as we like to think that everyone is more educated about food now and makes healthier choices, I don’t think that’s actually the norm except on Mumsnet. For example, I was a child of the 80s and my breakfast was Cocopops pretty much every morning from the age of 5 until I was around 14, at which point I decided that cereal was for little kids and made myself toast or grabbed an apple. Looking back, I was pretty shocked that my (strict) parents allowed that and a lot of other questionable food choices, and I could see that it had given me a real addiction to sweet foods. Once I’d stopped eating them, I soon found sweet cereals disgusting and couldn’t eat them any more, so when I had my son I had a bit of a bee in my bonnet about cereal for breakfast - I’m not the sugar police or anything, I just wanted to keep breakfast as a no refined sugar meal. He’s a teen now and to this day, only has cereal as an occasional breakfast, has grown up on porridge, weetabix, eggs, fruit and natural yoghurt etc. However, that doesn’t seem to have been the case for any of his friends - they’ve all had Frosties, Cocopops etc for breakfast ever since they were tiny*. And those cereals still sell by the shedload, so they must still be a very popular breakfast to give children.

*do not want this to come across as me saying I’m better than the parents who are giving cereal. I am definitely not. My son is no stranger to a Pot Noodle or a frozen pizza and I wasn’t as strict with fizzy drinks as lots are these days. I was using cereal as an example of what a lot of mumsnetters think is a food that people don’t give their kids any more, but they do.

I think people are coming at this with ‘I was a healthy weight and active therefore it was ok’.

I was super skinny but it doesn’t mean that eating all that crap was good for me or didn’t have an impact. We just didn’t realise it at the time.

My kids still have coco pops or chocolate weetabix. They’re teens and the alternative is no breakfast. I can’t force feed them eggs or fruit. Last night we had burgers with a green salad… that was a lot of green in the food waste 🙈

They eat home cooked dinners most nights and cooked veg, lunches are healthy but with a packed of crisps etc. They’re all very slim and healthy. I used to be much stricter about biscuits etc but dd1 was underweight so I chilled out and was just glad when she ate. She’s 17 now, 5’9” and size 6 uk women’s clothes. I could give them veg and hummus in their lunch boxes but healthy food is only actually healthy if you eat it and they just wouldn’t. No idea why because I like it.

Yep, that was us, but without the Chinese, and Friday night treat was fish and chips.

Yes, the fight over the Coco pops in the multi packs we had as occasional treats was a thing, as was the fight for the cream on the top of the milk.

80s food for me: sugar free, salt free, wholemeal, dry, joyless. Damn you Cranks Cookbook.
As an adult I bloody love sugar and have to stop myself hoarding anything sugary, even half an apple will get put in a safe place for it's sugar content.
I know what an ideal diet for my own children looks like, but I also want them to feel normal amongst their friends.

Look at your class photos , how many of the children are visibly overweight? Probably nowhere near the horrifying number of children today who are already finding it hard to bend down and tie their shoelaces. There is a time bomb of diabetes and other obesity related illnesses sitting on their backsides in our classrooms.

Parents might have been not to clued up about nutrition forty years ago, but the food they bought probably wasn’t as contaminated with additional sugars and fats, it is likely they didn’t buy so much takeaway junk and snacks, and their children did a lot more moving about.