To be shocked by this government dietary advice for babies and children?

I'm not suggesting that everyone should be like my sister, merely illustrating that it is possible, on a very, very limited budget, to feed your kids in a way that lots of the posters here are claiming to be completely undoable for people like her.

However, I am, genuinely, asking what these challenges that you refer to are? I'm sure you don't know everything about every topic under the sun either. And I clearly don't know all that much about the drivers of poverty, obesity and childhood caries in the UK, but I am genuinely interested!

Because to me it seems like people here keep talking about this group of people who cannot be expected to do even the most modest of basics, like nit-combing their kids or not giving them Coke to drink. Or listening to the health visitor who literally turns up at their door ready and willing to hold their hand and help them. Why? It's terrifying in a country with a comprehensive education system, free healthcare and social security benefits.

(And, just to add, I didn't grow up surrounded by financial privilege and neither did she. My circumstances have changed in adulthood.)

Have you read anything anyone has actually posted on this thread about public health and who this kind of advice is actually aimed at?

Oh dear.... Yes otherwise the nutritional impact would be the same as eating the cereal box itself, you might as well pop a multivitamin pill and eat the cardboard box ... But you stay ignorant if that's how you like it - www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/boston/news/breakfast-cereal-nutritional-claims-box-misleading-research-healthwatch-dr-mallika-marshall/

Sorry, I was thinking out loud about the reasons children are given these foods. I know you weren't having a pop (!) at Rice Krispies.

(pun intended)

I didn’t have a problem with Rice Krispies at all, I was responding to someone saying they should never be promoted by any healthcare setting, which I think is a nonsense.

Oh dear.... Lol. Ignorance reigns.

In plain terms, yes.

@QuinqueremeofNiveneh.
I'm not that poster but I'll answer. Current food and fuel prices are making it extremely challenging but in purely financial terms, it is not impossible. However, it is a problem that goes much deeper than financial. It is multi-factorial.

Yes it’s been quite eye-opening this thread. I’ve done some volunteering with HomeStart before and there are many many children for whom this dietary advice would be so many levels above what they are eating.

Some parents have had disrupted schooling due to chaotic home lives themselves, so have low literacy skills, don’t know how to seek out information or don’t trust it, struggle to read it and understand it, are financially illiterate, have been brought up on an awful diet themselves, no cooking skills as they’ve never been taught, don’t know how a functioning household runs as they’ve never experienced one, have addiction or mental health problems, partners in prison, children with challenging additional needs. I could go on and on.

So, in your view, are UK benefits/minimum wage too low to allow recipients/workers to eat healthily? I.e. in purely financial terms, it is categorically impossible for them to afford to buy and then cook from fresh ingredients?

Exactly. Public health advice like this isn't aimed at people who look at it and know that they are already doing better. It's aimed at the 'lowest common denominator' for want of a better expression. It needs to achievable by small changes that are within budget and using items that are widely available.

This is exactly what's going on. I think most MNers have little idea of how many poorer families live. This advice is aimed at them - those children who go to school having had no breakfast or just a can of fizzy drink and a bag of crisps.

I’m not sure if this is serious or not! You’re asking why not everyone can be like your sister, who like you has presumably come from a background of financial, cultural and educational privilege? You really have no idea what other people’s lives and upbringing may have been like? What other challenges than being poor (and in your sister’s case, being poor after a privileged upbringing) there might be for people to face?

Having worked in many UK ward environments, it depends on the set up. In countries like yours where hot breakfast food is the cultural norm, you have catering facilities set up for it. We do not. Especially given that most hospitals now have external catering services, not in-house kitchens.

I think some people here are very disconnected from the type of diets of many, many children in families of particular demographs. This advice needs to include everyone. Many of us MN posters can and I would imagine often do do our own research, but many more parents are incapable of doing so for various reasons or just have no interest in it, so the advice needs to be simple and accessible. Is it perfect? No. Is it many orders of magnitude better what many children are being fed? Absolutely. And it needs to be realistic and accessible enough to capture those who most need the help for whatever reason.

It'll be because they expect more children will eat rice crispies, because, as you said, they are more likely to be used to it. Not for catering reasons, breakfast in hospitals in my country are always porridge (always, you don't get a choice) except weekends when its more of a brunch so its porridge plus something else, so clearly easy enough to do in a ward environment,

Rice Krispies are fortified with iron. They contain around double a portion of porridge.

As you say, the ignorance on this thread...

This thread did make me think of the hospital menu my son had when he was in hospital too.

He usually had coco pops for breakfast and lunch/dinner were the typical 'kid' foods such as chicken nuggets, pizza & fish fingers followed by ice cream or chocolate cake with custard for pudding.

It's mostly down to what the majority of children are used to, they are in a strange place, often in pain and a bit scared. Familiar foods help alleviate some of that stress. Of course some it is also down practicality of catering arrangements, much easier and safer to do cereal and cold milk than hot porridge in a ward environment. You're right though, the idea that Rice Krispies are some kind of demon food is laughable.

Are the parents in these struggling families you work with so educationally and intellectually limited that they can't be expected to engage with any kind of information or education?

To acknowledge again, I personally genuinely do come to this conversation from a place of fairly major financial, educational and cultural privilege. But my sister is an unemployed single mum of three on benefits.

She scrimps and saves and budgets like mad. She has her fridge temperature set two degrees warmer than me to save on electricity. She cuts her own hair and can't replace her worn out coat. Her rent just went up by 2% and she's super stressed. But her kids eat the dreaded porridge and fresh vegetables every day! They sleep 10 hours a night and play outside and have very limited screen time. No nits and cavity-free teeth. Healthy weight. Despite her poverty and other challenges, she's able to recognise what's actually good for them and raise them and protect them accordingly. Why can't your clients?

(And can I also add, though you will no doubt find this ridiculous, that we actually don't ever buy Rice Krispies. Why? Because they are so ridiculously expensive for what they are!)

The cheap bags of oats can definitely be used to make porridge in the microwave.

Takes longer than three minutes but definitely possible

I'll say it again, in the UK, processed cereals are fortified with vitamins and iron.

They are relatively low sugar when compared to other cereals marketed at children. As others have said, public health and food advice needs to be as accessible to as many people as possible. The result is a solution that might not be as optimal as it could be but reaches the population who need it the most.

How much does it cost there? A 1kg box of oats that can be cooked in the microwave in 3 minutes (doesn't say instant on the box though, just says wholegrain oats but definitely cooks in 3 minutes because I only ever cook it in the microwave) costs one euros where I am, that's a lot cheaper than rice crispies which cost more than 3 euros for 500g. The gluten free oats cost a bit closer to 2 euros but that's a lot cheaper than gluten free cereals here which are 5 or 6 euros a box.

I agree, it's education. You have to know that an omelette exists and that you can cook it before you can look it up online, of course.