to think our children have far superior diets than we did?

[oldendaysending]

I had reasonably well-educated parents. Both worked full time however and our diets did suffer because their childcare arrangements were not great.

Breakfast, if we had it - frosties with semi-skimmed milk. Lunch was a sandwich on white bread filled with some sort of paste. Packet of crisps, chocolate biscuit. One piece of fruit (apple.) Drinks - coke/Ribena. Weekends was always a pie and cake

Evening meal - something my mother had cooked; these were usually OK. We'd snack on crisps/yoghurt/biscuit before tea. Might have a banana before bed.

Most children I know now have wholegrain cereal for breakfast. Sandwiches or pasta salad on wholemeal brea. Raw veg, yoghurt, oatcake. Water to drink. Snacks are fruit/more raw veg. kids should be very fit and healthy!

My son has the list you mentioned now.

First now*

WHY WERE YOUR PARENTS NOT MY PARENTS!?

YOUR kids might have a better diet than YOU did - but you certainly cant generalise that the same is true for all children

In fact hes currently eating a fruit split ice cream thing so guess that's one of his 5 a day

Not me, my mum was a seventies whole food fan. Homemade whole meal everything, never eaten a findus crispy pancake or wagon wheel in my life!

I too had crappy cereal for breakfast, rancid milk at break, a white bread sandwich for my lunch with a tupperware lidded beaker of squash (only ever ribena) (no fruit or veg) and a homemade dinner of something rank like liver, v.dry mash and cabbage or mashed turnip and another glass of milk. No pudding except on Sunday when my mum made one packet of angel delight stretch round 6 of us. Fucking grim it was. My kids don't know they're bloody born...

A large amount of children I know are eating donuts, and crisps at 8am. I definitely dont think its any healthier now.

I would disagree.

There was less choice, and certainly a lot less "snacking"..

Oh, and a lot less obesity too.

Olden: how old are you?
My kids are 35 ish.
They didn't know what chocolate is until they were 2.
All brought up on wholefoods and home baking.

Yes YABU - you are judging 2 generations on just your experience! Not my experience at all, and believe me, not the experience of most of the children I've taught in the last 25 years.

I also see the schoolkids around where I live piling into McDonalds straight after school and coming out with fries/burgers etc..

In my day it was either a few sweets from the penny tray in the local shop, or you waited til you got home and had your tea.

True enough! I suppose I am thinking back to lunch boxes in the 1980s - we certainly had white bread sandwiches, crisps and chocolate biscuits aplenty!

Petey, I daresay my DCs will once they're old enough to get away with it!

I don't agree OP, in your case, yes, but not always so.

IME more and more busy families rely on convenience foods than ever. Lots of parents kid themselves that because the kids eat fruit for snacks, and they do a proper roast dinner at the weekend, they have a healthy diet - but I know they are living on nuggets, sausages, waffles, pizza, oven chips etc and a home cooked properly balanced dinner is a rarity. I see kids day in day out being given a bag of crisps as a snack on the way home from school - OK in moderation, but on top of processed meats and lots of salty, sugary, fatty foods, not good. I have friends whose kids eat no veg or salad at all. Others who just eat peas.

In our house we all eat the same meals - but I know plenty of families where the parents eat well and the kids eat junk, simply because it's easy.

FarBetter - I'm 36 Kids are pre-school still so I do have power over their diets

I genuinely don't remember "five a day" being promoted so much though - I was certainly aware of it at secondary school from reading Just 17 various articles though.

Oldendays - I am talking nursery aged children unfortunately.

not much raw veg or wholemeal in the gigantic estate round here.

In my case you are totally correct OP, I ate your first list in my 80s childhood. I am trying to feed my DS the second.

We had mighty white put champion sandwiches sometimes and I thought they were proper posh!

Ring Angela's Ashes to be reminded of typical 1930s poor people's diets. Bread and Sugar, Bread and Sugar...

My grandmothers were 1940s-50s American housewives.
I definitely had a better diet growing up than my parents, especially after my mother went thru a health food-no sugar craze when I was 8.

but as for DC, I dunno. Probably their diet is better yet, than mine was, definitely less sugar. However, DH grew up with a 1950s-style British diet pretty much, and DC diet nowhere as good as that.

It's all about individuals isn't it? I was brought up on a diet of boiled spuds and fish (you can get vitamin C through spuds as long as you eat enough of them).

Dh was brought up on spam and smash.

Dc have traditional home cooked food mixed with home cooked vegetarian- and school dinners which all read like junk food to me.

I loved Angel Delight but my mother forced us to eat up the veg. Bleurgh. I think my teenagers live on pizza

I agree. I was brought up on crap as well. I remember at 8 going to the corner shop and spending all my pocket money on sweets, I remember having frosties for breakfast, crisps and chocolate biscuit with lunch (usually a white bread sandwich of sorts). My Mum worked and used to rely on processed foods. Things like sausages, baked beans and smash mashed potatoes. Once we got a microwave in the mid-80s, that was it!

My kids have a much better diet than I did! Much more fresh fruit and veg, lean protein and whole grains. Less processed crap, far fewer sweets, and much more variety.

What they have though that we didn't is a lot more snacking. My 6 year old dd is perfectly capable of going from breakfast to lunch without a snack but her school insist we send one. Any club, any event seems to require a snack of sorts.

But reading this, it seems like (unsurprisingly!) we don't all have the same experience!