DH upset about his childhood diet.

OP that diet sounds bloody dreadful but the having to peel off clothes sounds like severe childhood eczema to me. Could it be that food such as dairy/ cheese etc caused flares and therefore over time resulted in your Dh parents steered him onto what they consider to be safe foods. Could it also be possible that he may have displayed restricted rating himself? ARFID maybe? I have an AuDhD teen who has a very restricted diet, virtually no fruit or veg, often eats meat for breakfast!! But difference is we do have a wide range of health foods available for him and gentle encouragement for him to eat even small amounts of.

If your dh was under a hosptial specialist for migraines and skin conditions it’s possible that an exclusion diet was recommended.

there are foods that trigger migraines - caffeine, dairy and so on.

i just mention it because him not having dairy is unusual. I know quite a few adults who don’t eat fruit or veg because they don’t like the taste/were brought up without it but no dairy is pretty unusual.

My DC used to argue about how much veg they had: He's got more peas/carrots/broccoli than me, I'm not eating potatoes etc. I either dished up onto the plates what I thought or put it in dishes on the table. Any new veg had to be tasted, i.e. tiny bit on fork. Never had problems potatoes (not chips) were mashed with swede, turnip and carrots. This was a favourite! Meat/fish was just eaten and all veg was finished off.

I think I would step in if she tries to interfere with your bairns diet and tell her just because she didn't know how to feed her kids you will not allow her to pass that on to your child and to shut her yap.

Yes she'll be offended but something needs to be said.

JFC I'm surprised your DH hasn't gone no contact.

I would have a very clear conversation with PIL that they are not to express an opinion (unless a positive one) on what DD is eating

I think people do tend to remember fussiness as a child though. I was very fussy and I certainly remember being forced to eat things I didn’t want to.

this situation sounds neglectful to me.

I would tell MIL to stop commenting on your child’s food. It sounds like your DH’s diet was because of her issues.

He can't change the past, but he can come down HARD on any talk at all of food unless positive around you both and especially your kids. Your MIL is showing her true ethos by seeing it as a negative that your toddler loves sweetcorn, it's obviously a great thing.

The fact she's still talking about eating habits of her boys is almost a wierd munchausen by proxy or something, not literally I'm just saying it has little similarities to that. The past csnt be undone but you and your DH will have to be very serious and act on any negative food talk and any poor eating modelling as they get older with regards their grandparents, its so east to tell a suggestible child they don't like something and they believe it.

Wow these are some serious issues. How sad! Please don’t let this woman dominate your child’s diet now. I’d have a serious word with her and say what your child eats is nothing to do with her. As you’d found out via your husband, this can seriously affect a child for the rest of their lives!

What's wrong with saying "i love potatoes"? Surely enjoying food, is part of a healthy relationship with food.

I would try to avoid food times with MiL, if not possible, I would pull her up every time. If she says some food is yucky or nasty, I would respond with 'why on earth would you say that, xxx is lovely and tasty'

It really doesn't sound like that at all.

No one is going to choose to cook chicken nuggets every day for breakfast unless that is all the child will eat. Had they been told to cut out eggs and milk due to the skin problems? It’s all very strange.

Trying to put myself in his shoes and I think I’d be struggling with the idea that I love my parents, and they are supposed to love me and want the best for me.
But feeding a child junk (nuggets for breakfast?!) and brainwashing them to have a narrow diet, possibly resulting in ill health - that’s actively malicious.
So he’s feeling all this love and protectiveness for his child and wondering why that wasn’t given to him.
It must be painful, and perhaps he would benefit from talking to a therapist with a specialism in diet.

You need to make it clear to her that either she is only positive, never negative about food in front of your daughter or she doesn’t get to join you for meal times. And obviously she can never be left with her to babysit.

apart from baking cakes or making curry from scratch I’m sure all of their food comes prepared/heat up only

This is a very surprising skillset in people who've been described as non-cooks and almost afraid of food variety. I may be way off course, but are they first or second generation immigrants? There used to be an horrendous stigma against 'foreign food', all part of the general racism. Kids would be bullied for stinking of curry, whether they did or not. Therefore some parents went overboard on feeding their children what they perceived as a normal English diet.

I realise this hasn't been the case for a long time now - and I also realise how deeply things like that can affect a person.

Anyway, I'm not really sharing the angst here. One of my Grans had issues stemming from an extremely deprived childhood; she used to cram us full of sweets, cakes and all sorts. She ridiculed my parents for their commitment to healthy eating (they were ahead of their time on this). We were very clear on what was 'healthy' - our food at home - and what wasn't - Gran's food and sweets. We just took advantage of visits to the grandparents 😄

I can completely understand why he was so upset and why you are concerned about your MIL influence. My lovely brothers children are all very picky around food, and my SIL is the same as your MIL- ‘he won’t like that’ ‘he only eats X’ ‘Brussels sprouts are evil’ etc.
I have a bit of a rule that around the dinner table adults don’t talk about their food dislikes. I’ve grown my own vegetables so my children can have the pleasure of planting, growing and eating their own food. They’re still in primary school and will eat everything including Brussels sprouts - they actually enjoy vegetables.

It's to your husband's credit that he recognises his mother's behaviour as unacceptable.

There's a whole list of things I never ate because my parents didn't like them, but I eat more or less anything now.

My point was made badly. Its important to call out family members. Its unacceptable to project your disordered eating on others especially children. As parents its our job to break unhealthy cycles we grew up with including behaviours around food

The fantastic thing is that one or two wacky people with their food issues won’t put your dd off eating lovely food. Just model the behaviour you want to see in her, celebrate eating lots of different things and repeatedly and loudly shut down anything inappropriate that they say or do. I’d go as far as to avoid them entirely during meal times. Meet for a walk or at the playground or for a coffee.

My parents were weird about food. Both very obsessed with calorie counting. I ate a lot of boiled chicken and veal cooked to within an inch of its life and tinned veg when we had meals at home. Oddly, because they both had bad relationships with food this translated to letting me eat anything. It was like a weird transference, where they could live vicariously through me while restricting what they ate. I had like 2 years of primary school when breakfast was ice cream served in bed every morning. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The great thing was though that I had a granny who was a fantastic adventurous cook. She taught me to cook. She made me all sorts of exciting things. She made me love food and cooking. I have a very healthy relationship with food now. There isn’t anything I don’t like. I am a great cook. My kids eat all sorts. I don’t have weird hang ups, never been on a diet in my life, my body size is healthy enough and athletic.

So much great stuff around food and cooking can be modelled, even if there is one person (or two) with issues. It’s not going to override the good you are doing in your own family.

Sounds like MIL did her best with two very poorly children.

This is really odd OP.

I can semi-understand the lack of variety and chicken and chips in the car on the way home from clubs if I was to think that maybe the parents were busy and the kids were fussy etc...but to actively discourage your DH from even trying different foods? That's very odd and seems weirdly controlling.

I can relate to your annoyance at the comments about foods your dd is eating being 'yucky'...my MIL has an incredibly restrictive diet and she will sometimes make comments around my 3yo (not at her though, notably) and I wish that she wouldn't.

Now my big issue is that she’s starting to try to put DD off her food. DD loves mushrooms which MIL will always make a huge deal how ‘yucky’ they are

My niece's mother gave two of her children an eating disorder with exactly this sort of behaviour.

He always wanted to try pizza/go to Pizza Hut parties but was told he wouldn’t like it as he didn’t like cheese or tomatoes etc. Countless times I’ve heard his mum tell them both in restaurants that they won’t like something because they’ll be hidden garlic/onion/cream etc in it

That's really fucking weird. It almost sounds like a sort of Munchausen's-by-proxy, but with food. She sounds mad, especially if she's still telling her ADULT sons that they won't like certain meals.

I agree with you about not demonising food, eg “everyone hates broccoli”, “cauliflower is awful”, but what’s wrong with saying you love something? It’s fine to have preferences. I’d say I like green apples but love red apples, and I don’t personally like paw paw. I don’t think that’s going to set my kids up for an eating disorder?!

I was raised on processed shit too, my mum would swear we had a ‘home cooked meal’ every night but it was food from a freezer packet or a tin that went into the oven or the microwave. The one saving grace was frozen veg with everything!
The only scratch meal was a roast every Sunday that my mum used to slave over for hours and was so heavily salted that it was difficult to eat.
Basically she cannot cook and is ashamed of it so glosses over how bad our diets were and hers still is…