DH upset about his childhood diet.

I wonder if your mil has some kind of eating disorder? It sounds really neglectful but as you say other aspects of life weren't neglectful

I wouldn't have them around when you are feeding your children. And if they are and started this business of healthy food being yucky I would shut it down very very firmly. "Margo please stop that kind of talk. You reared your children. We are rearing ours and healthy food is part of our plan. If you want to talk about healthy food being yucky to my child I'd rather you left"

Wow that sounds quite extreme

I have some anger about my childhood diet (plain, lots of junk, processed) but this is next level

They sound neglectful, and this is from someone who has two fussy eaters. I can’t put together your op- she’s a good baker and they never wanted for anything but then fed them that?!

I completely understand your DH's point of view. My gran actually brought me up, she clearly couldn't cope (not criticising her - she was lovely), but I recognise now I was too much for her. She used to always have sweets, chocolates and cake available - I was very overweight as a client and have struggled to eat a balance diet my entire life with not great consequences. However, I do remind myself that now I am an adult my choices are my own so I do try to eat more healthily.

However, re your DD can you reduce how many meals you eat with PILs so it's not so much a problem? Or if not could DD speak to his mum not to talk about her feeding habits when he was a child but something like "We want to bring DD up to eat more healthily so please stop implying that chips are treats or better than corn on the cob" or whatever. I think if she doesn't take the hint maybe he should say that he feels he has suffered by not eating healthily and point out what you are both trying to do with DD. But be careful - could have big fall out consequences.

Yes we have our own preferences. My relative was demonising potato's the same way the ops mother in law demonises veg.

I would avoid visiting your mil at meal times. My mum was weird about food. She would only serve things like salmon salad or chicken stir fry. She had to cook a sunday roast every single week even when it was too hot to have one. She was horrified if a bbq on a Sunday. I can remember going on a sleepover and i had pizza for the first time. She was convinced that i would put on loads of weight. She didn't understand that pizza is okay as an occasional treat.

Wow this is horrendous, your in laws are disgusting creatures.

I had a similar experience, not take aways but I wonder what my parents were thinking as they were intelligent, well educated and high earners. They just never said no to us regarding food and kids aren’t very good at self regulating! Used to eat loads of crisps, biscuits, sugary cereals, fizzy drinks, squash every day. Loads of meat, white bread etc and I hardly ever saw a vegetable and if I did it was boiled to within an inch of its life! It also wasn’t the time or place that I grew up in, there were health food shops locally and a remember experiencing normal food at my friend’s houses.

Needless to say I am different with my own kids. Sometimes I worry that I’m a bit too controlling but think in general I get the balance better, they are allowed crisps/biscuits/chocolate etc just with limits and I make sure most of our food is healthy with plenty of fresh veg.

Another family member said I love potato's I told them not to use emotive language about food.

But that's weird. We do all have preferences and feelings around food. It's daft to deny that. We just have to provide children with a healthy variety and encourage them to try things.

My parents were similar and used to occasionally pipe up about me being ‘mean’ for not allowing some foods as more than a very occasional treat/never. I just openly say it’s not mean it’s because I know what it leads to in terms of health problems/pain that I experienced. I’d tell MIL to strictly stop all discouragement about healthy foods and that if she can’t she won’t be invited for any meal times. Your DH clearly feels strongly about it so encourage him to go have a conversation with his parents about it.

I would definitely be seeing your PIL less, particularly at meal times.

But if that doesn't feel like an option, then you should feel free to take a no holds barred approach such as:

"Oh MIL, that's such a silly old fashioned view. We want our DC to be well rounded, healthy eaters who enjoy all kinds of food"

"Don't listen to Nanna DC. She's got very silly ideas about food and thinks that only chips are delicious"

"MIL - you might think you are being helpful but you're not. Both of your children suffered with illnesses related to poor nutrition as children and I have absolutely no intention of subjecting my children to the same thing."

"MIL, if you don't stop interfering in the healthy food that the DC eat, I'm going to have to insist that we only see you outside of meal times. This i simportant ot me and DH and we're not going to have our efforts undermined."

Or, of course, even better, your DH says these things

Incidentally, a lot of people have very disordered thinking about food.SIL for example equates "healthy" with low calorie and low fat. She has zero understanding of the concept of balanced eating, healthy fats etc. It is very disturbing and being around her when discussing food is very tricky. She is, sadly, not unusual based on what I see on MN.

Eating disorders run through my family including myself and my mother. Addressing her behaviour with my own child has been empowering for me. Ive told her not to scold my child for leaving food. Another family member said I love potato's I told them not to use emotive language about food. We don't demonise food groups.

Whether he was a fussy kid or his parents were weirdly abusive, you can protect the next generation from the current and immediate threat of the GPs causing more issues with eating.

I wouldn't be around them for food.

Or if I had to, I'd make a bloody point of serving up veggie curries, veggie pies or veggie just about anything and serving with multitudes of veggie side dishes and garlic breads at every single meal they were present for.

I would do my very best to avoid eating with them, if I had to eat with them it would be at my house where I had control.

I wouldn’t let them have unsupervised care of her either.

As your child gets older it won’t be such as problem as you can explain “granny and grandad have funny ideas about food - that’s their choice as grown ups, but growing boys and girls need healthy food.”.

Children are really good at understanding about different rules in different places.

" 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. "

Now this is weird

I've seen that with lots of people - they'll look at something and say 'What's that? I don't like it' rather than 'What's that?' and then trying it (and not in the context of ARFID) - or they'll say 'oh, no I wouldn't like that' just at the thought.

It isn't that unusual for parents (usually women) to be really frustrated when their adult children suddenly decide that they will eat different things and make it out to be their mother's fault instead of her following the advice that if there's something their child would eat, to give it to them.

Eczema or psoriasis isn't a consequence of eating chicken and chips rather than spending twenty quid on a pizza that probably wouldn't be touched, though.

I felt ill just reading about eating that stuff

I also remember my mum leaving my dad to look after me one morning before an a level exam. For breakfast he made me a bowl of chocolate ice cream! I was so nervous I couldn’t eat it anyway.

And another time when she went to see family, we had to look after ourselves between school and dad coming home from work. He bought bags and bags of crisps to keep us from going hungry while we waiting the 2 hours or so. Predictably I binge ate them at a much faster rate than he probably expected. But he just topped up the bags.

I do marvel at the weird choices they made. I have a very fussy child now but unless he had arfid I wouldn’t make crisps and ice cream my go-to choices for food.

Mine wasn’t as bad as the OP’s but it could have been a lot better. I was a bit fussy as a child, but rather than try new dishes my mum just avoided anything I didn’t like. So the only veg I ate was cauliflower and potatoes and sweet corn. I used to eat corn straight out of the tin as a kid.

Later my mum said when I was small she was so worried at how skinny and small I was she tried to feed me up with cookies and cakes. We went to McDonald’s weekly because it was cheap. My dad being doctor tried to warn her but she didn’t listen.

As a teenager she thought I was trying to be bulimic and throwing up in the bath tub - I really wasn’t!

Predictably when I went to uni I put on more weight. My mum introduced me at 18 and still a size 10 to weight watchers, to the cabbage soup diet she read about in a magazine, slim fast, weight watchers and frozen ready meals.

Now I’m shorter than both of them and I put on weight very easily. I see-saw between eating healthily and eating junk. I think she was a product of her time, lack of information, but reading magazine fads trying to pass it on to me through good intentions, and living in fear, but I really do blame her for introducing disordered eating to me - it was so unnecessary.

As an example that isn't food related, I read to all my children every night until they were secondary school age. My youngest denies that I ever read to him and claims not to remember it at all.

It would hugely annoy me that she makes comments on my kids food, but do be aware that just because your DH doesn't remember being fussy about food as a small child it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Lots of toddlers are very fussy and it sounds like she got stuck in that phase for some reason.

Chicken nuggets for breakfast and discouragment of eating varied foods even when kids are adults, then same to GC now makes it quite clear the issue is not "busy parents" or "fussy eating". Come on. The behaviour continues.
It's parent's food issues pushed on kids and quite frankly neglect.
Diet like that can absolutely make skin conditions worse and many health issues.

What’s so disturbing is not the limited diet, but what sounds like manipulation. Trying to prevent him from trying other foods. If things did indeed happen as he describes he’s right to be extremely upset by it.

Agree with this and don't leave then alone with her or she will stuff then full of rubbish.