Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

154 replies

IPityThePontipines · 02/08/2015 12:44

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.

OP posts:
WorraLiberty · 02/08/2015 22:10

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

I don't know really. My MIL is from Madrid and it does seem pretty much like London in terms of rich/poor housing and overweight people.

HexBramble · 02/08/2015 22:11

I honestly haven't noticed and I have a very poor relationship with food. FWIW, food isn't shit, my own attitude to food and my perception of my body is shit. I've struggled since my late teens so it's woven into my very fabric. I don't see it ever going away Sad That said, I'm pretty unimpressed that folk would regard any food groups as 'shit'.

SadNot explaining myself very well.

Roonerspism · 02/08/2015 22:13

metacentric not true. The vast majority of supermarket jam is now made with glucose-fructose syrup and not sugar. You have to buy the more expensive stuff to avoid it.

I actually hate the gleeful "everything in moderation" as its usually spouted by someone eating fat too much shite. Sorry.

I haven't had an eating disorder but, following a period of feeling a bit shit, and finding a change in diet helping, I'm very interested in eating patterns generally. There is a lot of stuff on the Internet, and that is partly because most people think that so called health experts have got it wrong.

It's a shame that there can't be open discussions about food and what we should eat without people chucking around labels. This country has never been sicker and our current eating habits have a lot to do with it.

Egosumquisum · 02/08/2015 22:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Roonerspism · 02/08/2015 22:29

ego you are selective in your links. GFS is highly processed and I will take my chance with sugar every time. It will be the hydrogenated vegetable fat (oops - not so good after all) in 20 years time.

I'm NOT posting links for you!

Egosumquisum · 02/08/2015 22:34

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SchnitzelVonKrumm · 02/08/2015 22:34

The thing is, the threads you see here are actually a depressing reflection of real life. I am constantly amazed by number of intelligent people I know who are low-carbing, clean eating, 5:2-ing, avoiding wheat or whatever, as though there's a magic bullet that will make them thin healthy. When I was younger I had friends who knew exactly how many calories there were in a raisin. My aunt used to cook her DH and DS a huge meal (she was a great cook) but have an apple or some cottage cheese herself. People have very disordered attitudes to food.

A few weeks ago, my daughter had a friend round, who made some reference to fruit being full of sugar and bad for you. Both DDs looked at her in mystification, and I thought, why doesn't this stuff register for them? Answer: because it doesn't for me, and it didn't for my mum. And for that legacy of not fearing food, I am really truly grateful.

Egosumquisum · 02/08/2015 22:45

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

lastqueenofscotland · 02/08/2015 22:51

Schnizel that thing about intelligent peoplee doing daft things is so so true, I work with a lovely, intelligent, sharp, witty, beautiful girl, who is also on the cross roads between overweight and obese.
Instead of sensible eating plans, its daft diets that she can't stick to for more than 2 days because, understandably, she is starving hungry, cue a few days of "i'll start tomorrow/after xs Birthday/after the meal out I've got planned" where she eats loads of crap as if its the last time she's going to be allowed to eat it, daft diet she is 'definitely' on for a month or whatever, and the whole cycle repeats itself.

In any other aspect she is the sharpest pin in the box and i just find it so so bizarre that she can't see what she is doing is insane!

Roonerspism · 02/08/2015 22:54

Well - take your chance then! I do allow my kids a bit of sugar. But I avoid corn syrups. And yes - they are cheaper than sugar.

A lot of cheap snacks aimed at kids contain it. If the assertions are correct that it contributes to fatty liver, then I find this of real concern for the next generation and the NHS. It's in almost every processed food. But hey, it's "low fat" so it's all good.

Mistigri · 02/08/2015 22:58

Schnitzel unfortunately it doesn't work like that. There are no eating issues in my family (I've never calorie counted and have never owned scales), but my daughter has developed an eating disorder :( I don't know how old your daughters are but I've come to the conclusion that although you can help model healthy attitudes to food, peer and media pressure will overcome this at some point, especially in girls who are competitive or perfectionist.

What you say about intelligent people behaving bizarrely around food is absolutely true though and my daughter is unfortunately a good example.

Egosumquisum · 02/08/2015 23:00

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Metacentric · 02/08/2015 23:04

Claiming that there are good and bad sugars (ie gfs bad, refined cane less bad) is like the idiots that think honey, maple syrup, black strap molasses, etc are somehow "better" than refined cane. They're all sugars and the differences are in the imagination. the only thing about molasses is that it is powerful tasting so it can't be snuck in unnoticed

I notice that the claim that cheese and bread are unrecognisable from a generation ago hasn't been defended.

Roonerspism · 02/08/2015 23:08

Meta - it's late and I'm tired! But bread is a very different beast now.

I don't know about cheese!

Egosumquisum · 02/08/2015 23:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

bruffin · 03/08/2015 00:03

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.
In victorian times bread was aldulterated with lovely ingredients like alum and chalk in to whiten it or potato flour because it was cheaper or even plaster of paris.

That naturalsavvy website sounds very quacky to be honest.

I do think some people are over invested in food on MN. I was bought to believe food should be shared and relished. I am very sad that my ds is allergic to many foods from my own heritage ie humous, flounas, baklava, nuts and sesame.
I dont believe in restricting foods the eat a mixture of cooked from scratch to ready meals. I avoid artificial sweeteners and stevia because they taste revolting.

Roonerspism · 03/08/2015 07:12

The link is from the U.S. where they really do bugger around with food.

But even UK supermarket bread is produced very differently now, and the type of wheat used has changed too.

Interestingly (to me anyway!) is that there is a trend to try to grow older types of wheat, producing more authentic bread.

Metacentric · 03/08/2015 16:23

I had to use that link just for the title.

Yeah. You note that in their list of things used for flour bleaching all of them are marked "Banned in the EU", right? So unless you're getting your bread mailorder from the US, why is this link relevant?

Metacentric · 03/08/2015 16:27

But bread is a very different beast now

Which you follow with a link to a US site which says bad things about things which are banned in the EU. Now, assume I'm popping into Sainsbury's to buy a loaf of bread. Tell me how that differs from bread sold in your imagined golden age? Bruffin has pointed out Victorian adulteration, which rules out the 19th century. Chorleywood processes started in the 1950s. Do you have some evidence that bread 1900-1950, say, was materially different (leaving aside the higher extraction ratio of flour 1939-1950ish, "the national loaf", an effect you can reproduce by buying wholemeal bread).

stevienickstophat · 03/08/2015 16:37

I'm a size 12-14, 41 year old woman with a BMI of 27 and a 31 inch waist. I'm very active, can wear normal clothes from normal shops and generally feel ok.

I started a thread about whether I should accept myself as I am a few months ago.

Big mistake. Comments on that thread included (I'm paraphrasing) a size 14 today would have been an 18 a few years ago," "you are so used to seeing overweight people you have forgotten what a normal weight looks like", "a BMI of 27 is dangerously overweight" and one poster suggested I visit my GP!

I was Shock

Ludicrous.

Egosumquisum · 03/08/2015 18:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LiDLrichardsPistachioSack · 03/08/2015 18:08

stevienicks that is such fucking bollocks. That must have sucked. I remember a thread where a pregnant woman who had lost a lot of weight but was still a bit overweight was posting about feeling shit that her GP was focussing too much on her bmi. IIRC she also had recovered from an ED. Somehow a bunch of twats came on saying stuff like "I remember when I weighed nearly NINE stone, it was horrible..." Plus some other incredibly helpful replies.
Isn't there some research going on that's finding that being slightly over your healthy BMI is actually healthier than being at the bottom end of it?

ethelb · 03/08/2015 18:10

Stevie I'm a size 12 who often has to buy size 10 clothes as they are cut so big. I have a 29 in waist and was measured up as a 1950s size 16 in a vintage shop. Bmi= 25
That is no reason to not accept who I am if i want to though Confused

stevienickstophat · 03/08/2015 19:50

Ethelb - I hear what you're saying, but there's so much more to clothes size than how fat/thin we are. Weight distribution, muscle tone, etc etc.

Plus, rationing was still going on in the Fifties! Surely after fifty years of peace and relative prosperity we don't expect to have the same body shapes as our 1950s counterparts?

I can't help but think the whole 'vanity sizing' debate is yet another stick for women to beat themselves (and each other) with. I have clothes that are 10-15 years old, with the same size label in them that I wear now, and they still fit me.

bruffin · 03/08/2015 19:56

My 70s clothes were a lot smaller than todays size 8s. My dd is a 6/8 but she is a lot taller than i am and her waist is at least 3 inches bigger than mine was at the same age. Her bmi is 18.5 so she on the thin side. It was difficult to get 8s in the 70s and 6s didnt exist