Fat parents

[PoppySeed2014]

I'm up with a colicky baby and feeling brave enough to throw an aibu out there...

I'm overweight and unfit. Mainly because I eat too much Nothing more or less mysterious than that!

Lots of my friends are a healthy weight and fit. I'll use one as an example.

My dc eat really healthily, my friend's dc less so.

Eg Plain organic yoghurt vs "kids" yoghurt full of sugar. Fillets of fish vs fish fingers. Jacket potato vs potato waffles. Water or milk vs ribena. The odd chocolate button vs daily chocolate biscuits/bars. I guess the main difference is that I feed my dc healthy, normal, (mainly) organic food - masses of vegetables and fruit etc. my friend mainly feeds her dc "kids" processed food.

So. Well done for reading this far! Aibu to think that what I feed my dc has more impact on their long term health than my weight? I'm genuinely not sure and when I (inwardly) cringe as she gives her children daily snacks of biscuits and ribena while my dc have fruit and milk I think, yes, but I'm unhealthy, she's healthy... Surely being fit and slim and active is a better example long term? (She's really fit - runs marathons, surfs...)

So please help me to see sense! (I'm trying to lose weight and get fit, but Rome wasn't built in a day, blah blah...)

(To clarify, I eat the same healthy food as my dc. But also chocolate, cake etc when they're in bed or at school etc. so they don't see me eat much crap. Oh, and chocolate/cake etc are not banned - they just don't have much at home and don't really ask for much "junk" food. I'm happy for them to have homemade cake, a few buttons etc, but not lots of processed crap every day. But they are allowed to eat everything - nothing is banned. I also use the word "treat" to mean anything from a trip to the playground to a banana. "Treat" isn't just junk food.

I think you're probably both setting a good example but in different ways. And you're both doing some things wrong.

When I was a kid I could eat more than both my parents and still remain a tiny little twig. Junk food would not have made me fat.

But, learning to eat right as a child did help me later in life when my metabolism slowed down and I had to manage my portions and junk food like the rest of you. It's good to give your children a good base.

Coming off junk food triggers the same areas of the brain as coming off an addiction. So I wouldn't start them early on it they'll do it on their own in college.

However, it's also good to lead by example. Your kids don't see you eating junk food, but kids are smart little things, they'll figure it out. I figured out plenty of things on my own that my parents tried to hide.

You both have half the equation it seems.

Also, is she just feeding her kids easy junk while you're there so she can worry about other things? Are you sure she's not feeding them healthy food at home when she has time to prepare it?

I struggle with this too. I'm so aware of my addiction to sugar that I'm petrified of giving my kids unhealthy food. I don't think that it's necessarily the best way forward because I know they need to learn to have a healthy attitude towards food and moderation but I don't really know how to do it.

I wasn't given the best diet growing up so I'm not sure how to go about instilling a healthy balance in my kids. Luckily they're still really little so whilst they don't really no any better I can limit processed food but I don't want to make it forbidden as I worry that it could backfire on me.

I think about this way too much but still am unsure of the answer.

I think you are both doing just fine :)

If I had to choose, I'd say you are doing 'the best thing'. However, it's not like she's feeding them MaccyD's 3 times a day either.

bulbasaur No, she feeds her children this stuff all the time. Not all meals are really processed but they have ribena and sugary snacks every day and lots of "kids" food.

Thank you for your thoughts - so helpful...

My children (7 and 9) have started to notice adults and kids who are overweight. sometimes they make a comment. So I'll tell you what I tell them.

I don't care how big or small anyone else is, or what they eat or don't eat. Or how much they exercise. All I care about is this family and I will pass comment on this family and this family alone, and you should, too.

It has amazed me how easily I have managed to feed my dc very healthily. Partly it's because I've never given them certain things - so for eg they're used to natural yoghurt and fruit being pudding. Once a week or so they'll have crumble or ice cream - but even then I give them organic, good quality ice cream. And they only have brown rice/pasta at home. That's "normal" for them. So I do feel a bit bemused that anyone choses to introduce less good food at home when dc are little.

And I must reiterate - no food is banned for my dc, it's just that everyday meals at home are really healthy and varied. So if they go to a party and eat crisps, cake etc it doesn't matter at all as on balance their diet is very good.

I honestly think MN 'healthy' eating, is the most unhealthy, and disordered eating I have ever seen.

however I take your point. But I'm really asking which people think is more important - feeding your dc well or leading my example.

So I do feel a bit bemused that anyone choses to introduce less good food at home when dc are little

That is smug and no one likes smug.

There are a lot of reasons why not everyone can give their children organic home made food. It's nice, but it's not the be all and end all of parenting and being smug about it is pretty shitty.

Do you Ihave - care to expand on that? I mean, given there are 1000's of us who all eat quite differently.

chippingin Sorry, I don't want to sound smug. I'm really not. I suppose I mean why give a toddler ribena rather than water or milk? Or introduce daily chocolate biscuits rather than a banana? I'm not talking about complex organic expensive meals - just regular daily plain food.

Anyway, I'm far from smug. I'm 5 stone overweight and appear to have "introduced" daily twix breaks and Pringles breaks into my own life... sigh

Oh, and this isn't about me thinking my friend is a crap parent or ranting about what her dc eat. She's great, we just feed our dc differently but it's an internal conundrum for me - not anything I'd ever raise with her.

You're right Chipping, I'll try.
I see so many posts demonising foods, cereal, white bread and any sort of 'treat' food mainly, that I wonder how these children don't have a hang up about them.

I have a 13yr old, would live on cheap ham and fizzy juice if allowed, plus her wooly white bread, BUT she is allowed to eat that in moderation, always has been.
She likes Lucky Charms cereal when I treat her, will also eat plain shredded wheat, loves McDonald's, will eat a tasting menu at a Michelin starred place.
Food, is food is food.

Keeping stuff away from them or calling it unhealthy is erm unhealthy.

brillohair my dc eat a really wide variety of food. They're little so don't know about macdonalds, coco pops etc. But nothing is banned.

Yes, food is food. But in the fridge at home I'd rather they found normal food than processed food. Cheddar instead of sodding cheese strings.

But that's not really the point of my op...!

Well in that case, I have no idea of what will have a more important impact on your kids' attitude to food - what you feed them, or what you feed yourself. Neither do you. So you might as well treat your own body as a temple as well as theirs.

Poppy

Whether you mean to sound smug or not, saying So I do feel a bit bemused that anyone choses to introduce less good food at home when dc are little makes you sound smug - so I'd not go around saying it IRL :)

I agree with you re water/milk and not juice/squash and carrot sticks/apples not chocolate biscuits. Good food, no unnecessary sugar loading. But not all the kiddy food is terrible and I have been know to use Little Dishes & organix bars/packets.

There's really nothing wrong with fish fingers (if you eat fish - I don't) & I think that cheese strings are much the same as soft chedder (but they're vile IMO).

I also agree that when they are little they don't need to be having coco pops or Maccy D's.

It's easier with the first child though :) by the time your colicky one is the same age as your eldest is now, they'll probably have eaten loads more 'rubbish' than PFB

Some people's lives are just very hectic and 'packet' food keeps better, is easier to take with you and eat on the run. If people are picking kids up after work and they haven't had time to batch cook so they can grab something out of the freezer then fishfingers and smiley potato faces really isn't going to kill the kids.

Anyway, as you said, that wasn't really the point of your thread.

I don't know which is better or which is worse neither is perfect and neither is awful.

Now go back to sleep!

Ihave I see a lot of different diet threads on MN, that's for sure, but I don't see many parents restricting their children's diets much?!

chipping I'd love to go back to sleep but the oldest dc has woken me up! Probably wind from all the lentils

Stop bloody weaving them then

One with colic, one with wind - definitely cut back on lentil consumption!!

I hope they both settle soon or you might be looking for a packet of cocopops in the morning

Crunchy nut cornflakes will do... Mmm.... Obviously it's organic porridge for the dc. Obviously I should join them!

Both are important though. It is important to teach your children how to eat. I just tell mine that sugar is unhealthy and to be avoided, and that they should eat lots of vegetables. They obviously don't eat lots of vegetables but at least they must be getting the idea. I also teach them that they have to do some kind of sport every day, so e.g. if they didn't play football at break or have a PE lesson, then they should go and play on the trampoline rather than sit on the sofa watching Youtube videos. I do a lot of sport and eat a lot of vegetables. Your friend might not have time to cook if she's training for marathons though - that is very time consuming.

But it's also important that they don't develop some kind of prejudice about fat people. Especially considering nearly everybody is fat nowadays, according to stats anyway. My youngest son told me the other day that one of his friends had said that his mum was "fat and lazy". I said that was a horrible thing to say about your mum (or anyone). How unpleasant.

I do think that not giving children any soft drinks, squash or juice is a really really easy and cost effective way of improving their diet whatever your circumstances. Seems like a no-brainer.

Poppy I must admit that before I had kids I would have said exactly the same about juice vs water. I was full of good intentions to only allow water. But in reality, my daughter just wouldn't drink it, even as a baby. She just spat it out. She would happily have drunk milk until it made her ill - it 'confused' her, leaving her feeling too full to eat properly, and in large amounts it seemed to make her constipated. So that had to be limited too. So what to do with a child who would be gasping with thirst and yet spit out water? I allowed her weak diluting juice because my informed decision was that she was better to be drinking something than nothing. Then when my ds grew big enough to realise that she was drinking juice whilst he was drinking water, he wanted juice too. You might not agree with my decision, but I'm fine with it. My dd is not overweight, and eats reasonably healthily (I rarely buy processed food as I enjoy cooking).

You've said that your children are happy to drink water because that's all they've ever known, and that is great when the child will do so, but sometimes it just doesn't work. And believe me, before I experienced this with my own dc I would have read a post like mine and inwardly thought 'well, I wouldn't let that happen, I don't believe her that a child would refuse water when she was thirsty' but it can and does happen. And I extend that to all tbh - even if it's the only thing they have been exposed to, it is still entirely possible for them to reject it outright.

I think feeding your children as healthily as you describe you do is a great gift to give them. And you've considered the way food is used to manage behaviour, and its psychological effects. I think many women who struggle with food (I include myself) think about these things for their DC. Your slim friend sounds complacent in some ways.

But I also think an active lifestyle is something that has to be learned - ingrained! - early. Do you get out and get moving with your kids? On a daily basis?

My last point is slightly different from the question you asked and I hope you don't mind me making it. I know you said you're trying to lose weight and get fit (I too need to get moving), so I might be preaching to the choir. MIL is mid 60s, has been very overweight for a long time, and her failing health terrifies me. Both her knees have gone, she fell and broke her arm because her mobility is so bad, she had to radically change her diet because she was pre diabetic. All direct consequences of her weight. DD is her only grandchild (DH her only child) and she has never been able to be alone with her because she simply can't manage physically. It's sad. And though I would never say this to her, I'm angry with her about it. I had fit and active grandparents and I'm sorry DD won't have the same. Not to mention the implications for DH and me in terms of care. She is in worse shape than my grandparents, in their 80s.

Poppy, you sound lovely, self deprecating and funny, not smug, and I 100% agree with your approach to feeding children. Lots of people are very sensitive about this issue, and will immediately condemn anyone who says that it is better to give a a toddler a mainly whole foods diet than a diet of mainly processed food (with the occasional banana and carrot stick). I think that how we eat as children sets us up for the health issues we will have when we are in our 70s.

Kids who eat an interesting and fun diet of a wide variety of whole foods (with all the normal occasional exceptions), whose parents are not fanatics but just enjoy this sort of eating, will not develop much of a taste for crap, in my experience. I have 3 older teens who love food, and will eat almost everything, but they prefer to eat the kind of "comfort food" they grew up with, (which is more likely to be black bean soup than potato waffles). I have seen this in all the families I know well.

To answer your real question, which is a very interesting one about the power of setting a good example, I think that this changes as children grow up. I have found that the reality of how you live your own life becomes increasingly important. You have small kids, and they are fairly easy to trick as long as you are clever and kind about it. When children turn into teens, they pick up on more subtle things, like your self esteem issues, your relationships to friends, your degree of cynicism, your body image, your ability to be optimistic, and just everything that makes you who you are. I have seen how my attitude to myself and to other people has sometimes hurt my beloved children, and that is very painful.

So I think you are doing the right thing in trying to exercise more, eat better, and generally love and care for yourself. I think that, in the end, if you love your lentils and have fun cooking lots of different unprocessed foods, your kids will pick up on your enjoyment of healthy eating. If you are waiting for your next Twix and feeling bad about your weight, your children will probably pick up on that, and either copy your behaviour or unsympathetically condemn you for it.

treacle I completely understand. And slightly diluting water with pure juice is something I do too on a really hot day. And I know that some children hate water! I was more thinking of strong ribena bring given from a very young age to children who would happily drink water.