To think that MN is a haven for people with eating disorders.

[IPityThePontipines]

On any food thread there are abnormal levels of fixation with certain food groups being "bad" or "poison" and an awful lot of people seem to have very unhappy relationships with food.

And before anyone pops up with "obesity crisis", I'd point out that we are seeing growing rates of anorexia and bulimia in the UK too.

I did feel sorry for the poster who thought her DCs had a good diet but since joining Mumsnet she isn't so sure... The one with spaghetti bolognaise for dinner.

Someone has said here that a diet of just everything and in moderation is best. I do agree. My 5 year old is allowed Coca Cola, because the equivalent of half a can, let's say a month, is insignificant. Especially if you consider the bigger picture of how great he is with vegetables.

It is interesting to me how many posters on this thread have recovered from an ED. I have too but I refrained from saying that in my first post. I don't know why.

I've always thought that if you ban foods like Coca Cola then at secondary age they might be more inclined to buy exactly what they want and overeat because of the novelty? Maybe banning it makes it more than it's cracked up to be.

I think there is a general issue with people knwoing what 'moderation' is. At one end of the scale you have people who would never eat a grape because it's too sugary and at the other you have people who think daily cake is moderation. Both camps think their way is the way of moderation and will fight to the death on line to prove it.

At this point I should fess up that I am an overweight, previously obese, binge eater (I have indeed eaten 12 Krispy Kremes in one sitting even though I don't even like them) who is fully signed up to the anti-sugar science.

I feel easier on myself now as I know most of my problems aren't will power but the obesogenic environment I live in. As displayed by many a messed up argument over diet on Mumsnet.

Yes. In the grips of moderation 1/8 of a Krispie Kreme would be moderation.

But I don't know what they are?!

I agree with the op.
I've seen loads of threads over the years with posters who weigh 8 stone, are 5ft 4 and a size 8, saying they look chubby when they get to 8.5 stones...and then loads of similarly small posters wade in to agree. And he posters who say size 10/12 is 'chubby'
I just don't click on them anymore because I suspect there are anorexics on those threads feeding off each other..(pardon the rather unfortunate pun)

I want to know when bread became the devil. All of a sudden, everyone's giving up bread or only allowing it past their lips twice per week. Folk seem obsessed with it.

I agree that forbidding a food could make it more attractive, but you can even take that too far, like the one the other day about the 20 month old not being introduced to biscuits pissed me off a bit, like it takes someone really pathetic to not introduce sugary snacks when they can still count their kids age in months, you would think the child was 7 being denied stuff at a birthday party the way people chimed in that she would end up sugar obsessed. At 20 months they can tell the toddler would go through a whole childhood deprived.

I let dd eat chocolate for breakfast today.

It's her birthday

I so agree with you here :) There's so much bollocks from people!

Happy Birthday to WeirdCatDaughter. My kids (and husband) eat birthday cake for breakfast if it´s a family birthday - family being the 4 of us, 2 uncles and 2 grandparents! It´s an in-law family tradition.

Metacentric Great point about vegetarians.

Scarletts I agree about bread. The people who think bread is evil should move here to Madrid where EVERYONE eats bread and NO ONE (literally) is obese and very few people are fat. (But they do eat homemade lentils for dinner, instead of frozen ready made lasagnes...but that´s for another day).

That thead wasn't abount the biscuit or not giving a 20 month biscuits though, was it. It was the rather wanky 'concept of a biscuit' thing and not allowing adults in the room to eat biscuits in front of the child, wasn't it?

Granted, it probably went tits up after I stopped reading the thread.

Part of the question was is it 'even desirable?' in the thread title but a lot of people jumped in to say the child would be greedy with them.
There is a popular mn theory about greed tho that was just one example, sometimes the situation isn't as extreme as a school kid being denied usual treats, sometimes the op doesn't want the MIL giving their toddler sweets they don't say 'my child will never eat sweets' but they are often told they are BU.

Thanks, WCL!

My daughter (4) just walked in holding a raw onion. I think we had better make her some dinner.

But the bread, cheese and jam that we buy now, from the average supermarket, not "specialist" etc products, have completely different ingredients in, than they did centuries (or even since the 50's) ago.

No way. Jam sometimes has glucose syrup in it as well as sugar, and they use citric acid (lemon juice) to help the set. Occasionally extra vitamin c is added. But 99% of it is sugar and fruit as it always was. Cheese has remained essentially unchanged other than pasteurisation; what is "completely different" about cheddar cheese today? And bread is a different method for very cheap bread (the Chorleywood method) but what "completely different" ingredients does it have?

The idea that there was a golden age of pure food eaten by our ancestors is just bogus nostalgia for A lost age that never was: that the ww2 ration was s huge improvement on diets prior to then shows how bad diets were, given that the ww2 ration would give the mn food police a fit.

Maybe banning it makes it more than it's cracked up to be.

There is research out there that shows banning or restricting food means it's craved later.

I had a lot more control over the DC diets the younger they were - as they go out into the world you kind of have to relax and not demonised food and aim for mainly healthy most of the time.

I think this is part of a wider society phenomenon of food anxiety - part of a moral panic about obesity -( not to say there aren't issues but lack of time, exercise and potion control and money play a part ) but it's all wrapped up in moral language coupled with concern about food quality and super foods and modern world concerns.

Concerns/ information/new research are aired around us via news and lifestyle media all the time most people are pretty bombarded with them even if they aren't completely registering it - being sort of background noise.

Though did read that something like 250 new food product come on to the market each year despite most people still eating a very small and selected and dwindling number of possible range of edible things which does seem wrong - synthesised diversity.

It's Lena Dunham isn't it who said that vegetarianism is just an ineffective eating disorder? It's true more widely, of course.

Sorry, but this pisses me off. Vegetarianism/veganism shouldn't be lumped in with the faddy diets or pseudo-eating disorders. I choose not to eat animal products for ethical and environmental reasons, not to get skinny. Sure, you get the odd one using the labels as a cover for restrictive eating but the rest of us eat completely normally. Including cake.

The people who think bread is evil should move here to Madrid where EVERYONE eats bread and NO ONE (literally) is obese and very few people are fat. (But they do eat homemade lentils for dinner, instead of frozen ready made lasagnes...but that´s for another day).

So why does Spain have such an obesity problem?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming it on the bread (I loves bread, me). I'm just curious as to why none of the overweight/obese Spaniards have found their way to Madrid?

Have they been banned?

IIRC, Madrid is a lot like London, only young & energetic or fairly rich can live there. Not a lot of ordinary Spaniards in Madrid.

There certainly are overweight teenagers in Madrid, as my daughter's Spanish class hosted a Spanish exchange with a Madrid school, and the Spanish students were definitely larger than their counterparts here (southern France). However it should come as no surprise if there are fewer overweight people in a relatively wealthy part of the country; that's no different to the contrast between the richer parts SE of England and the poorer parts of the North.

I think the most depressing thing about food threads on MN - and about almost any discussion about food in RL - is how poor the average person's nutritional knowledge is, and how vulnerable they are to misinformation. My daughter is a clever girl with an interest in biology who has nevertheless absorbed huge amounts of nutritional pseudoscience from the Internet (and ended up with a mild eating disorder - I do wonder what role the internet plays in triggering or reinforcing eating disorders among teenagers more generally).

Also, re vegetarianism, of course it's an ethical choice for many people, but in my experience young women may use it as a way of controlling what they eat and making it more socially acceptable to refuse foods in social situations.

Im not sure about eating disorders as such but i agree with youfaddy eating is spoken about a lot, then theres dirty food or being naughty and ate its all just food i dont see anybody moaning about dirty gin. But i know faddy eaters dirty food eaters clean eaters in RL and tbh its just dull listening to it.