to think that our children will pick up

[helloclitty]

their long term eating habits solely from watching what and how we eat rather than what we tell/allow them to eat.

I mean all those parents who don't give their kids chocolate etc but have crap eating habits themselves are just going to lose the battle.

Equally mums who skip meals, eat like birds are likely to influence their children unhealthily no matter how many full meals they place in front of them.

Don't we all end up like our parents anyhow not through genetics but learned behaviour?

I agree... at least this is exactly what I tell DH who is a terminal salad, fruit and veg dodger. Having DS has improved DH's diet no end!

No my parents eat very healthily, they are slim & healthy
I eat like a pig & I'm fat

Stranded
I don't really mean missing the odd meal whilst feeding but people who often miss meals because they have a poor relationship with food.

Don't agree with that in it's entirity.

I (think) I eat nicely. I cut food, with a knife, I use the knife to direct food to my fork, I bring the fork up to my mouth ....... on the other hand one of my sons uses a fork edge to cut with if he can, he positively shoves his face into his plate - usually he's bolted it all down before I've managed to sit at the table. Im not even sure he chews TBH.

I also eat (reasonably) balanced, he would, if given free choice, exist on pizza, thus precluding the need for cutlery at all.

I do not have this problem with the other two.

Retrospectively, I can see my mother managed her eating in times of stress and I have no desire to exist on an apple a day for several months until what ever situation it was has passed.

however, if youaren't shown how to cook, how to shop, how to ransack the cupboards and create decent meals out of nothing, the danger is that you will exist on junk/fast/ready meals unless you marry someone with better background eating habits than your family and assumes that role.

Hmmm. Not sure.

My mum never skipped meals but I did.
She cooked stuff in a way I never would.
She bought processed meals that I would never consider buying now (Findus pancakes anyone).
She never let me have chocolate or sweets - I do buy them but savour them and make a bar last a couple of days.
My mum would often eat something different to me - often cos I refused to eat what she was eating (fish, bananas and mushrooms - uuurrgggghhh).
She let me eat salt and vinger crisp sandwiches at school but somehow I've turned out ok and have good habits.
She still eats butter. I still refuse to go near the stuff cos I can't stand the taste.

If anything, she's been learning better skills off me since I've become an adult. She eats better now than when I was a kid.

The one thing I've never seen her do was diet. She never believed in it or did it. Cut down on portion sizes yes. Diet no. That I'm grateful for. Food has always been something to enjoy, and not get stressed about, in our family.

I think that it's probably true to a certain extent - modelling good eating habits is definately an extremely good idea.

I kind of thing that being obsessive about food/nutrition/weight in any way - even if you are a healthy size/weight yourself makes it an issue when it should just be eating.

Most of my friends are slim, but all of us binge on sweets etc given the chance despite a wide range of parental attitudes and levels of my food vs your food hypocricy!

YABU to think it is only that