to be bit upset with dsis re food?

[wandafull]

Just had dsis and her family

• her dh and two dc- to stay for bank holiday weekend, plus had another ffriend, her family, same number of kids. So, busy house. Dsis sits me down just before she left and told me as nicely as possible that the food situation was a 'bit weird'. To give a bit of context , I was always overweight as a child and this continued into adulthood- really had to do portion control and had a personal trainer for a while to drop down a size. Anyway, I have two dds and definitely do not want them to be over weight. So, they get good healthy three meals a day but no snacks in between. I don't offer snacks to other kids either, when they are here and don't give them it if they ask. Otherwise my dds get very upset when they are not allowed but others are. So I suppose I'm quite careful with adult portions of food now I've lost the weight- as has dh too- and I don't make piles of food when we have guests. Dsis basically told me that her dc were hungry and grumpy and that she hadn't had enough to eat and that it was weird that I offered so little food! She was nice about it but it's got me really quite worried- I offered guests and kids cereal for breakfast at sevenish, then nothing till lunch at 1 and then nothing till kids tea a 5 and adult dinner at 9Ish. Is that weird?

I would not go from 7-1 without any food & obviously I'm an adult so certainly wouldn't expect a child to.
Snacks don't have to equal unhealthy, never heard of fruit & veg?

If I was your sister I would have been miserable and I would have to have ordered takeaway, your relationship with food is unhealthy OP.

It's hard though foodietoo to get in food when you are a guest at someone else's house, add in some borderline disordered eating and the letting other people parent the way they want, I can see why the Op's Dsis was stymmied.

I stayed at my Dcousins recently. She's lovely and I love her to bits, however they eat hardly anything ( or it could be that I eat loads!). After a lunch of soup and a roll I was desperate around 6pm and then when dinner wasn't going to be ready until 7pm I cracked and asked for some food to nibble on. I felt like a big fat heiffer doing it, but it was either that or pass out. If you're going to stick to 3 meals only, then dinner needs to be early.

If DS had been around I would have had to insist that he had a slice of toast or a banana in between meals. He probably has too many snacks, its a habit I'm trying to break, but not very successfully.

OP it's great you've lost weight. I'm a generous 14 and would like to eat more healthily and it is hard when you've been an overweight DC yourself to figure out what's best for your DCs but I'd never come to stay in your house.

Have to add to the YABU's. You clearly have issues with food and its colouring your attitude. You were, without meaning to be, inhospitable and unfair to your guests.

More worrying, however, is that by trying to do the right thing with your children and food, you are probably going to encourage eating disorders and a bad attitude to food in them. Cereal at 7am, for instance, is not enough to keep children going until 1pm (when I'm guessing lunch is restrictive too?)

It may be true that an earlier generation snacked less, but I think meals were different. Heavier.

More people ate cooked breakfast. A proper main meal would contain a meat dish - even if that meat was 'stretched' to make the most of it - and potatoes. Plus a pudding. (Often a cooked dessert. Something with custard.)

It was usual to have sugar in your tea and full-fat milk.

Certainly when I grew up, although there wasn't so much of tortilla chips, fancy crisps etc. But it was the norm to offer visitors not just a cup of tea, but also - at the very least - a biscuit. Not to do so would be considered odd and rude.

So I think to have 21st century 'healthy' - eg. low fat - meals with portion control and no snacks is going to cause difficulty for anyone who is growing/or is physically active/or who had low blood sugar/a fast metabolism.

It might also depend on what people are doing. If I went swimming, or biking, I'd get more hungry more quickly. So to me a healthy regime, would be a flexible one.

Yes people snacked less but they would have a big bowl of porridge for breakfast or a fry-up and a chunk of bread and milk, say. Then they'd have lunch at 11.30am, a decent sized cooked meal with veg and meat etc not a sandwich from the coop or a couple of celery sticks with hummus like nowadays, then tea at about 6 then they'd be in bed about 9! If you are eating a big cooked breakfast with juice, tea and toast then yes you shouldn't need to snack, but a bowl of cereal is quick burning carbs that would leave you hungry shortly after.

I think YWBU because it's never nice to enforce your views / routine on others. Even if you believe your way to be right or better. This applies to most of life!

I think if your routine works for your family, then that is fine. It wouldn't work for mine, but then am sure we all just get used to our own routines.

However, I'm sorry that you feel so bad, because you obviously didn't mean to offend. Perhaps you could speak to someone about any issues you might have with food, it could be helpful?

It may be true that an earlier generation snacked less, but I think meals were different. Heavier.

I agree with this. My father was slim and never gained a pound in his entire adult life and never ever snacked (concept was unknown to him) but his breakfast was an egg, porridge, toast and jam. Dinner was soup, meat, several potatoes, and 2 other veg, sometimes dessert but always tea and a couple of biscuits. Tea would have been eggs or mushrooms or cheese with bread. They always had supper of tea and cheese and crackers before bed too. I don't like the incessant snacking nowadays either but I think you have to have more substantial meals to avoid it. 7-1 is a very long time to go without food or drink too. 1-9 would have me gnawing on the furniture.

Weekends away are supposed to be about food and fun.

yes, the "people didn't snack in the 70s" thing misses that a cup of tea with a couple of sugars is 60 calories, having 2 of those through a morning is an extra 120 calories, same as a banana or a couple of biscuits. And more often than not, the older generation would offer a biscuit with tea.

Plus add in the additional meal of 'tea' we've cut out, dinner at 9 is all good and well if you've had a couple of sarnies and a scone at 5. But yes, snacking as we do it now wasn't as popular and everything for adults was much more physical.

I don't snack normally - at all.
I eat a big breakfast and lunch and a lighter dinner as I go to bed early for work.

During BH weekend or if I had guests I would provide nice food, nibbles, drinks and make sure my guests were comfortable by providing what they liked.
I would be mortified to have DC crying because they were hungry fgs!

I would have been ravenous and I would have been making extra toast or cereal for the kids and me. I wouldn't have taken no for an answer tbh. I wouldn't go back without supplementary food next time. 9pm is too late for an evening meal for most people as well. I am sorry you feel bad but really being hungry is no fun.

People didn't snack in the 70s is bollocks!
No we didnt buy snacks or drink fizzy ,unless it was Christmas !
We had a biscuit tin and my mum baked constantly- we always had a slice of cake if we went to aunties/grannys etc.

I was one of the DC whos morning warm, boak milk and biscuit was taken away by Margaret Thatcher ( milk snatcher )

Your sister is right. You are imposing your weight loss diet on your children, spouse, and guests. Growing children have different nutritional needs than adults, your children need more than you do. Guests expect generous food offerings, thoufpgh certainly you can limit it to generous offerings of healthy food. As a hostess, leaving guests no food options is rude. You dont need to offer junk, but larger meals, or healthy snacks. Or even slightly less healthy and yes, your kids can have them too. Special treats can be just that, not a euphemism for 'cheating on your diet'.

I don't offer my DCs snacks as a matter of course if they're at home with me (3.5DTs), and that's because when they were going through the fussy 2-3yo stage I realised they ate much better and tried more stuff when hungry. I know that's not true of every child.

However, on days at home with me they tend to have a late, large breakfast (porridge or cereal, and fruit, and toast, sometimes yoghurt or eggs), a decent lunch and a filling hot dinner. And we have the time to make sure it gets eaten.

On days when we're out and about, or they're at pre-school, or have friends around, or anything that disrupts the routine and means they are less likely to eat a proper meal, then we definitely offer snacks.

For me not snacking was about making sure more nutrition went in, not reducing the overall calorie count. And it's a very flexible rule - I will take them for cake straight after pre-school if I think they I deserve or need it

And I tend to channel some kind of sitcom Jewish mother stereotype when we have guests, and cook A LOT. That's part of the fun, frankly.

The fact that your DC get 'very upset' about not being allowed snacks is evidence that you have already created food issues for them.

Food is already an emotionally loaded issue for them. You say you really don't want them to be overweight (does this mean you'd be unconcerned if they were underweight?!). By restricting food in this way you are setting them well on to the path of lifelong issues with food (I am speaking from experience).

I know you must feel bad enough by now. Next time just ask your guests when they want to eat and try for a compromise. We eat at. 5-6pm and going til 9 makes me very tetchy! Try and serve more food, be generous. You can still restrict yourself but not everyone else.

About the food issues you are passing on to your dc, you'll get some good advice on here. I think something needs to change. I think freely available healthy food is the way to go.

It is probably a good course of action in future (if you don't want to join guests in eating) to stock up on snacks and say 'there's xyz in the fridge/cupboard, please help yourself if you ever want anything'.

My 6yo is skinny as anything and he eats at least 4 times a day, 5 if you include the mid morning fruit snack. He can't handle big meals so he eats smaller meals more often. He physically can't 'fill up at mealtimes' because he feels uncomfortable and full after quite a small helping. He'd be ok if he could save half his lunch and eat it mid afternoon at yours but I wouldn't choose to feed him that way.
It makes me sad that you talk about your 6yo plumping up. Maybe she needs to before a growth spurt? Or maybe she will always be a little plump? And maybe...that's ok?!?

Have to say too that if we had friends or family to stay it would be all about the food!
Big meals, desserts, nice cheese and breads,lots of wine etc. Few extra meals thrown in for good measure !!

Especially over a bank holiday. I'd be miserable staying at your place OP!

From the OP a few pages back: "Feeling really bad by the way" and "clearly need to rethink".

I think she's got the picture so it's probably not that useful to keep laying it on thick.

hi thanks all - just had a bit of a shock really. from dsis saying the food situatino was 'weird' to lots of posters saying that i basically have a disordered relationship with food, if not an eating disorder . id never thought about my relationship with food in these terms before, just considered myself someone who had managed to lose weight, keep it off and feels much better. ill think a bit more about it, try to do some reading, but its all a bit raw to be honest.

Well we snacked in the seventies: at school it was milk and a biscuit at break time in the infants and a packet of crisps in the juniors. We also had money to buy sweets on the walk home from school. In the holidays we played out but we were always nipping in for a piece of fruit or some crisps. We frequently had an ice cream or lolly from the van too.

We had our dinner at about 5, when my dad came in from work, so we often had supper; cheese on toast or crackers or a small omelette. Come to think of it we also snacked in front of the TV, mostly fruit but sometimes my dad would chop up a Mars bar or something between the four of us. How kids today would react if you chopped up a Mars bar.

Aside from anything else, I'm amazed you would only offer a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I don't know any adults that have a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Any decent host would offer a hot option, even if it's only eggs and toast or porridge. I'm not saying you have to get up at 6, so you can do a full English at 7am, but an hour or so after everyone is up you should be able to offer a few hot options for you guests. If cereal was all that was on offer to me I wouldn't be having any breakfast at all.

What were you serving for lunch and dinner?