Children of UPF parents

[Horriblebirth]

Just wondering if anyone else grew up being fed absolute shit by their parents and what their relationship with food or their diet is like now?

Growing up I was given ready meals, frozen meals, sugary snacks, probably over 90% of my diet was UPF. Pasta using a jar of sauce was considered a cooked meal.

I used to get embarrassed when I'd go to a friend's house and their parents cooked a lovely meal and I didn't like any of it. I wasn't being rude, I was just so used to beige crap.

It's been so hard to try and get myself to eat real food as an adult. I'm still terrified of trying new things and have a really limited diet. I'm trying my best to ensure my kids never turn out like me because it's depressing and embarrassing.

That's a shame it's meant you find it hard to enjoy 'normal' food. I think it's really important to have a healthy balance and foods not to be labelled good or bad, or food groups forbidden.

In super 'healthy' families the kids often binge on beige and junk as soon as they have access to their own money and never stop seeing food in that black and white way. They can use that type of food as a reward or binge in secret as it's seen as naughty and almost taboo.

I think I had quite a balanced childhood with food. Home cooked meals but sweets and sugary snacks most days. As a teen I ate McDonald's practically every day on the sly or with friends! So I think that's kind of unavoidable when kids push boundaries with food choices. Then hopefully go back to moderation in adulthood.

Yep me. Chicken dippers, turkey twizzlers, pot noodles, tinned everything, find us crispy pancakes, the only homemade thing my mum made was Sunday dinner and the odd pot of stew in the winter. She's still a very lazy cook which has resulted in my dad and her being diabetic.
I've struggled with obesity from by early 30s, but me and my DH feed our kids as much whole food, cooked from scratch as we can.
I resent my mum a bit and I suppose that's not very fair, but she just couldn't be arsed, she'd rather smoke 40 cigarettes and read the paper than actually cook and as a child of the 80/90s the microwave and frozen foods were the answer to her prayers.
Friday was pot noodle night and we saw that as a bloody treat, grim.
I remember loving going to my grandparents because my two grannies were fabulous cooks, everything from scratch. I dread to think the damage parents have inflicted on us for the sake of convenience, my mum didn't even work til we'd all left school so she had no excuses!!!

Because something is prepared partially, it doesn’t mean it’s bad, pasta and sauce can be a good option for a quick meal, not junk by any means, because you cooked from scratch for 2 hours doesn’t make the tomato sauce healthier necessarily but prepared foods vary.

I grew up on a diet of poultry moulded into nonsensical, breaded shapes served with potato moulded into battered, nonsensical shapes.

No vegetables.

My mum was convinced that I was a 'fussy eater' because I never liked the meals my parents were eating which they let me try. But their meals were mostly dry meat, boiled vegetables and plain potatoes. Horrible, tasteless shit. I internalised that label of being a 'fussy eater' and then became reluctant to try new foods.

To be honest, it was going out with my first boyfriend that snapped me out of the habit, and got me trying new foods.
I have a very healthy relationship with food now. I have a lot of foods that I don't like but that's preferences, not fussiness. I don't think my mum really appreciated that children can have preferences without it being 'fussy', and that not liking shit food isn't 'fussy'.

It took a while but I have a good and wide diet now. I don't force myself to try new things. I really consciously try and eat with my eyes - if something looks good, I'll give it a try even if the ingredients sound a bit off-putting.

I think for a lot of healing as an adult is to stop blaming the childhood and to take ownership of your life journey completely.

You don't have to like every single thing you eat at first. Or you take the beige diet you're used to and learn how to make it yourself so it's healthy and not full of crap. Pretty much everything can be made yourself.

Yep we lived of microwave meals or frozen

I now cook the complete opposite. I had a job overseas at 18 when I suddenly immersed in only locally grown produce and I had to cook fully for other people also. So I learnt pretty quickly by trial, error and kind help

We now eat fairly healthy imo

My mum worked for Kraft Foods, so we got boxes and crates of the latest “innovations”. I quite liked it all, but I was very interested in food and trained as a chef, and now as a Food Scientist.

We eat a healthy diet but use jars of pasta sauce because we like it - nothing wrong with that

Yep we were fed on total crap and then my stepdad came along when I was 5 and would cook (what I’d now call lovely) stews and curries from scratch but I’d refuse to touch them and my Mum would give me tins of sausages and beans on toast. When they divorced when was 12 we were poor so my younger sister would get something beige and me and my Mum used to share a pot noodle. I’ve got terrible teeth from all the sugar and a real binge eating personality. I’ve struggled with weight (too fat) since my 20’s and even though I can enjoy nice healthy food now it’s not my automatic go to and there are a lot of things I don’t eat including fruit because we never had it as a child.

I really would like to stop seeing the 89s/90s stereotype of UPF parents. I had my children in the 1980s/90s and wholefood (the old term for clean eating) was the order of the day. Limited meat. Home made from scratch bread, cakes, biscuits, pizza & yogurts. No artificial colours or sweeteners.

The shite that passes for food these days wouldn't have ever made it onto the table of any of my 80s friends. No squash. No artificial colours. Certainly no MacDonalds.

I think your struggles with food are a bit more than your upbringing tbh.

I was raised in a UPF household like you describe. But as soon as I was an adult and got my own social group, I pretty much saw that food was a signifier of how well travelled/open/cultured you are and how eating beige as an adult was considered quite restrictive. So made it a challenge to eat lots of different foods and try everything.

I remember doing my first uni food shop at 18 and buying every different type of hummus. I knew it as a ‘poncy middle class thing’ and had never eaten it before! I wanted to try it!

I agree with this, most parents mums mostly are doing their best with what they have, and now adult children have their own power to change and take responsibility for yourself.

Dh had never had a chicken breast when I met him, only birdseye chickens. I don’t think my mum knew they existed. Our chips were chopped potatoes, dh had microwave ones etc.

He's grammar school (state) educated with a degree (his parents stopped education after a levels but both attended the single sex grammar schools dh and I attended so were educated people). He now eats what I cook, so mostly fresh with occasional jar sauces, sausages and nuggets. He used to revert back to nuggets if he was cooking but he’s finally started feeling confident making casserole or bolognaise etc.

dh’s mum is horrified dh likes curries and chilli etc. and thinks I’ve changed him!

What was your mum realistically supposed to do? Force feed you or maybe let you go hungry, if your mum was neglectful that is different but it sounds like you didn't want to try anything. Why did she feed you crap was she low income maybe didn't have the confidence to cook "proper food" or to exhausted from being a single parent to think straight,

Absolutely this. I pity the parents of some Mumsnetters and I hate to tell them but they will be doing things that their own children will criticise when they are grown. It was always thus.

I was raised on a lot of crap, we were skint, my Dad would come home with wholesale boxes of stuff from the local frozen food place. Stacks of burgers with the paper stuck to them, mousse which we ate still frozen. My gran would cook and bake, but she boiled the bejesus out of everything and baked with loads of sugar.

Once I was working I bought different foods, I was into animal rights and stopped eating meat. I'd cook sometimes for mum and dad too. Just because they'd fed me one thing didn't render me inacapable of eating differently. I suspect people who struggle with this may always have had some food difficulties. I would never blame my parents, they were doing their best.

I didn’t want to try anything different because she didn’t give me anything decent when I was starting to eat! We never had fruit, never had fresh juice, I was given tea in a bottle with two sugars, sugar sandwiches 😂 Everything was sweet or processed, even now she lives on microwave meals and eats once a day, she didn’t give us a good start on life with food and it’s given me life long issues. The only thing she ever made was apple pies and she’d give us a slice for breakfast! She should have done better.

It was the 90s, we didn’t have much money. It was pretty normal. But as an adult it’s fully up to me now to take responsibility for my own diet.

Well lucky you because my parents were shit!

I grew up with the opposite. Everything was cooked from scratch meat & potatoes based. My mum grew her own veggies to save money. I used to love going to friends houses having nuggets & burgers. My friend's thought the food at my house was weird. I serve my kids a good mix and if I want something easy that no one will complain about its pasta with jar sauce of chicken dippers with chips.

Lucky me because my parents fed me UPFs? My Dad was an alcoholic , I grew up poor. But I don't blame them for the difficulties they had in life.
Presumably you were warm, clothed, you were fed even if the food wasn't ideal, I'm guessing there were other issues at play.
Times were different. I've been an adult a long time now, I take responsibility for my own diet. My own grown up kids criticise me for other things, although they were well fed and loved.

I was also given tea with two sugars in a bottle- my mum thinks it’s cute I used to ask for my ‘tup o tea’

and sugar sandwiches

and golden syrup on toast

and she was always on slimming world so a lot of toffee miller light yogurts for breakfast

She's still a very lazy cook which has resulted in my dad and her being diabetic.

I resent my mum a bit and I suppose that's not very fair, but she just couldn't be arsed

And what is your dad's role in all of this - does he not also have a role in your obesity?

I agree with others. My diet growing up was SHOCKING. But when I grew up I was so averse to the absolute crap I was raised on it made me way more adventurous, as did surrounding myself with other people and cultures during my uni years/early twenties.

That said, I’d get away from labelling some foods as good or bad and blaming everything on your parents. Everything is about balance and moderation.

My weight goes up and down depending on life and to be honest the time I did the most cooking from scratch and ate the least UPFs I was overweight because I was just plain eating too much, healthy food or not! UPF doesn’t automatically mean overweight so I wouldn’t entirely blame that for your weight. You’d lose weight if you ate one pot noodle a day. You wouldn’t be healthy, but you see my point about weight and UPF.

Your parents almost certainly did the best they knew how to do so don’t be too unkind. I used to make fun of all the crap I had to endure growing up in the 80s/90s (and I still do poke fun at during get togethers) but once I became a parent I realised how bloody hard it is. My children have a much better diet than I ever had, but it’s still not perfect. I’m just doing what I can on any given day, but it’s about progress, not perfection.

@Richardoo Absolutely this. I pity the parents of some Mumsnetters and I hate to tell them but they will be doing things that their own children will criticise when they are grown. It was always thus.

Exactly this. In 20 years time, the adult children of most of these posters will be slating their parents as shit, just shit in different ways.

Every generation thinks they've reinvented the wheel. Clean eating is just the 1980s wholefoods (Cranks, Food for Thought, Neals Yard, Sacks, River Cottage).

I grew up in the 60s & 70s eating what my grandparents referred to as 'foreign muck' such as homemade curries, goulash, Greek food etc.

UPF was aspirational for me as a teenager because I was so unused to processed stuff. I still didn't feed it to my own children in the 80s though!

I had a childhood diet just like yours OP. I've got an absolutely appalling relationship with food. Really bad. I did manage to wean myself off the sugar once I hit adulthood but have fairly crap teeth from all the junk, sugar on everything. Deep fat fryer. Microwave crap. We couldn't afford McDonald's or takeaways. We might have Fish and Chips occasionally. I'd live on cereal now if I could get away with it. I hate cooking and I'd never cook for myself if I lived alone.

DHs family weren't much more wealthy than mine but they were not reared on crap. He in turn has a MUCH healthier relationship with food and loves cooking!

Our DC have been raised on home cooking but we can afford takeaways and McDonald's so theyve not been deprived of all that. Sweets have always been a treat like takeaways and we've tried hard not to make junk food the enemy OR the norm.

I hope we have the right balance and they'll be healthier than me!!