DH upset about his childhood diet.

True. Eating chicken nuggets for breakfast every day is very odd. My fussy eater has porridge.
I also don’t get all her dinners from a chip shop or tell her that vegetables are yuk.
But maybe the parents do have a take on it if DH was a very fussy eater. Why the chicken nights for breakfast as opposed to cheap cereal.

Also there was very much a view that if you were thin you were healthy. So things like sweets weren’t restricted that much. I was so skinny. So my parents were just happy with anything I ate.

I think it was very divided back then due to the introduction of convenience foods (which we didn’t realise were so bad for us!).

Some people had mothers who were really good cooks and had been taught. This was definitely a thing.

However some of us had mothers that hated cooking! So all this convenience food was a god send. I mean Smash!! Who thought that would be a good idea?! Also remember some Mums were working and exhausted some were at home so had time to make lentil stew.

To my Mum’s credit we did have fruit and vegetables.

Though I wonder if your DH was on a plain exclusion diet due to eczema? It would definitely be neglectful not to offer fruit and veg otherwise.

My MiL maintains DH would never eat any fruit. Kids can be strange.

I don’t think people realised how bad chicken nuggets were back then. Arguably (playing devil’s advocate here) having a low sugar, high protein breakfast was better than the rice crispies with piles of sugar on top I had….let’s be honest we weren’t all eating Greek yoghurt and homemade granola back then.

With regards to the restaurant- if he was denied food he wanted then that’s awful. But maybe your MIL didn’t want to waste money buying dishes for kids she knew they wouldn’t like or eat . A hint of a rogue mushroom or onion and some children wouldn’t touch it. Then that’s money wasted. Also eating out wasn’t such a thing in those days so maybe she wanted to play it safe..

Who knows. It sounds bad and I certainly wouldn’t be entertaining her views around my children. But maybe your DH wants to chat more to her as kids memories can sometimes be a bit inaccurate. It may not have been as bad as he remembers or there may have been a reason for it.

I agree. My grandmother was providing her kids with balanced meals with only occasional sweet treats during the second world war and she learnt to cook from her mother. I think that eating rubbish when you don't have to is a fairly new phenomenon.

DH was neglected.

Neglect isn’t always intentional.

I have food issues due to my mums eating habits but hers was MH where she thought if we ate certain stuff we’d die and so there was only a handful of things we were allowed and they were all white/beige and sugar or carbs.

It stays with you and affects you as an adult.

DH needs to work through his issues and how to be careful not ti pass any issues on to his DC.

And I would avoid eating around MIL at all.
If the times you can’t avoid it, you and DH need to have phrases ready to tell her to mind her own business in a gentler way.

I'm not sure that 'abusive' is the right word for your PIL, or even 'lazy'; maybe they were just 'wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong'. They think that children can only thrive on chicken and chips and refined sugar and fat. They think that if they are offered anything else they will become miserable or ill. Your poor DH, he must have suffered horribly. I'd avoid meeting them at mealtimes when your DC are there.

Also people didn’t have the same level of information a generation or so ago.

I'm not entirely sure that's true.

I'm 51 and my eldest is 27. Healthy eating was very much understood a generation ago! My grandma cooked from scratch and ate very healthily. She'd be 103 now.

Some people might not have eaten healthily and maybe some people didn't understand the dangers of eating unhealthily quite so much. But eating healthily was definitely understood a generation ago.

And no one has ever thought chocolate ice cream was healthy.

Oh those poor little boys, that your husband and brother were. My heart aches for them.

Your MIL and FIL were/are neglectful and abusive, it's awful when our own parenting journey shines a light on horrible shit from the past. This is absolutely worthy of therapy. Does DH eat a variety of food now? Honestly I would cut contact, they sound awful.

Honestly though I think not knowingly having tried a vegetable until adulthood and eating chicken nuggets for breakfast everyday is in a different league of awful. I was a very picky child, but at least I know my parents tried to feed me proper food!

Are people genuinely missing the bit where MiL calls her son mean for not weaning the little one on chocolate, cake and such like?

This information that you need to wean on healthy foods has been out there a very long time now. Many decades.

Maybe it's the teenage-like behaviour of a lot of AIBU posters, have to automatically take the awkward position.

This. Your DH is looking at it from the perspective of a child. One of my children is a terrible eater. There are times when I give due to work demands, fatigue or simply wanting a break. It wears you down.
Also people didn’t have the same level of information a generation or so ago.

If this is something that is weighing on DH’s mind, I would recommend him seeking counselling. I don’t think the connection between food and emotions is to be underestimated, especially the effect it can have long into adulthood where early attachments are concerned. I’ve been in counselling for over a year and a huge part of it was concerning my diet in early childhood which stemmed into other areas and unfortunately, long into adulthood, for example my ability to trust myself and others. It’s quite easy to brush it off or say oh maybe he’s forgotten he was a fussy child, but I would disagree based on what you’ve said here. You mentioned this is weighing on him so I think it would be worthwhile for him to explore why and how this has affected him. Hope he is able to find peace with it OP. 🙏

Tbf my very fussy teen doesn’t eat fruit, veg, his main diet is just chicken, rice, pasta, sausage, yorkie lids. He used to eat a lot more variety and this has got worse as he’s got older. But he doesn’t have any health conditions. It sounds like you are saying they were being neglectful. But I’d be tempted to have a conversation with the in laws and get their side.

I know I’m talking about possibly a couple of decades before your DH. I’m mid 50s. But I had everything with chips for my meals when little. Egg and chips, fish fingers and chips, sausage and chips. Smash on a Sunday, rather than mash. Not a big amount of veg, and definitely not every day. But I don’t feel bitter about it. I guess it’s only this last three decades that more emphasis has been placed on good healthy diets, especially for children. Maybe he’s focussing on that aspect of his childhood because you’re making it a big deal about how your own dd is raised in relation to healthy eating? Very few childhoods are perfect.

I was raised on turkey dinosaur shapes, chips and beans or peas. My parents then had a different meal a few hours later. I was constantly told I wasn’t allowed to order something it came with things I didn’t like.

I tried fish / vegetables / curries all when i moved out and have spent years unpicking my unhealthy eating habits.

If my mother started with my kids I would keep them away at meal times and I’m with your husband…I am still a bit bitter they didn’t try harder than feed us freezer foods.

Whether or not there were health issues for the MIL's children leading to a restricted diet, her callign mushrooms 'yukky' and lots of comments how mean we were as we weren’t weaning DD on cake/ice cream/chocolate. She’s always telling DH how mean he is for limiting sweet treats indicates there are much deeper emotional problems around eating and actually some pretty unpleasant undermining of her son.

Food issues can last a lifetime. I'd be having words and if MiL won't listen, I'd be keeping visits short and avoiding food times.

It sounds like some weird munchuasen type behaviour from your MIL, your poor DH, glad that he and his brother have both been able to move on from it with their current diet.

Some people just aren’t great parents though, and some people have no clue about nutrition.

I watched a dad encourage his 5/6 year old daughter to choose a can of pop the other day in the supermarket. She wasn’t even bothered! That’s just a snapshot I know, but I did judge.

I agree it's strange to cook chicken nuggets for breakfast rather than cereal. I had a weird diet as well as a kid. I was vegetarian, but didn't really get vegetables or fruit. So everything was just pasta and sauce or rice and beans, potatoes. I did get some canned vegetables here and there. There wasn't cereal or yogurts, any food in the house other than what we were getting for dinner that day. Im needing dental implants at a young age

I was going to say similar - could it be things were kept bland and new foods were discouraged because they were worried about flaring health conditions?

I would be limiting contact and definitely no meal times with them.
We have done similar as the inlaws have strange food habits that my husband looks back on and sees how it affected him being overweight as a child Then a tricky relationship with food growing up. It's so crucial to develop a positive healthy relationship with food.

Your mil wouldn’t be within a 5 mile radius of my children

I can empathise with your DH as I have some resentment towards my DM over her terrible diet and the amount of junk food she kept in the house and let us eat. My dad made actual meals a few times a week that were decent (even if from a box with one veg on the side), but my mother prided herself on never cooking. Even today in her late 60s she will eat a whole bag of pepperoni slices and a processed chocolate cake as ‘dinner’ if my dad isn’t around. She also drinks soda like it’s water and it’s rotted her teeth. She has somehow managed to avoid becoming obese or having any health problems (yet) but I’m disgusted that she thought giving us Pop Tarts for breakfast and white bread sandwiches with crisps for lunch every day was normal. It was the 80s which explains some of it, but the fact she still eats that way really irritates me. I’ve had to teach myself about nutrition as an adult and have struggled with my weight over the years and put a lot of that down to my DM not being bothered to feed us properly.

^

sounds like bad psoriasis. Its amazing how much treatment of this has come on in some 40+ years...also it was bedbound for days because of migraines and this still happens so some unfortunates