To feel annoyed with friend who feeds her dc nothing but crap

[itwasmuchbetter]

I know it's none of my business but I am getting more and more concerned about dc of my friend who basically live on crap. She doesn't work so time isn't an issue, they have plenty of money to buy decent food but their diet is just awful. Examples of evening meals are Pot Noodles, Plain pasta with mayonnaise, cheap white bread/ tortilla with tomato ketchup. That is after packed lunch of chocolate brioche, chocolate bar, crisps. They frequently get constipation. This has been going on for years so I don't know why it is annoying me so much recently. Oh and they are constantly supplied with Haribos at every opportunity.

I know people from other cultures that I would say had food 'issues'. Adults with extremely limited diets who can't eat out etc. But the staple foods would be (for example) boiled potatoes and meat. Or grain porridge.

One of my DC I would describe as sensory issues. Chicken is only acceptable with no trace of colour (ie inside of the breast picked out and outside discarded). No fried food. No sauces. But overall - the 'safe' foods do cover the major food groups and nutrients.

Once you're down to ketchup sandwiches - then it's gone too far and is dangerous.

Just scrolled through the thread to find Alice beating up on parents of fussy eaters.

"would believe the fussiness if a child was refusing to eat anything but apples, or carrots. Funnily enough, it's never the case."

I served a full meal to my family - DD ate a whole cucumber and half a head of boiled Brocoli. This is typical for her. I'd hardly call it healthy. She will happily also eat white pasta and chicken nuggets but any other protein/dairy/ carbs are a real struggle. She doesn't 'do' proper meals. Will sit at the table with us and eat whole heads of vegetables, but go into meltdown if we press her to try something like potato or salmon.

given your last post I'm very surprised they haven't been flagged up already.

it must be noticeable if they are say rapidly gaining or loosing weight or looking unhealthy and pale and lack of concentration etc

I know how shit dd1 looks if she's had a few days if not eating properly through mot feeling quite right or just not feeling like eating. very quickly she starts to look like some one has given her a black eye.

if she'd been fed like that from Birth shed look like that girl from the ring.

they must look and feel like absolute shit.

YY to stirling - I know one of the families I was talking about extremely well - from babies the DCs were fed well - variety of foods etc
But as they got older they started refusing anything high calorie - no cream, no butter, no cheese, no full fat milk - one would just about tolerate skimmed milk at a push. They wouldn't eat meat or protein of any description. They would eat a slice of plain bread (no spread or filling) or plain pasta or 'plain' cereal - weetabix/cornflakes (one had water on their cereal) - and very small amounts. They would eat some fruit and veg - apple and cucumber mainly -but again in small amounts. Parent was trying to feed them healthily...but was told to stop worrying about it and just feed them anything they would eat/drink - the higher calorie the better. And they would refuse to eat things like pizza or fish and chips or lots of types of cakes and biscuits...much better now but still very thin and 'fussy'.

But in the case of the OPs friend - if the OP doesn't feel like she can't do anything I would report to SS - so this parent can get the help she seems to need.

You're not being unreasonable. Kids need to eat well even if the food isn't cooked from scratch all the time, but I wouldn't raise this with your mate. Just invite them over to yours more often.

Mind you, according to FiL, DH was raised on sugar sandwiches . He's a lean 6'2" with great teeth and looks like he spent his youth running rosey cheeked round a rugger pitch rather than smoking in the pool room of a pub.

That is terrible. Tbh I don't think I could leave them like that. Either you need to be able to talk to her about it and try and help her improve, or give social services a call and tell them the situation and that she needs help.

Maybe is social services come around and tell her she needs to clean/ tidy and cook abc then she might be willing to listen to you for advice.

Food doesn't need to be gourmet, but even if she started given them some cereal for breakfast ( most fortified now), that would at least be some dairy from the milk added and some vitamins. Add a banana easily and they will already have much better than they do now.

Then she needs to learn simple things like how to cook eggs or use the oven. Scrambled egg in microwave with some
Toast and baked beans or something simple. Basic pasta and sauce, fruit bowl filled, chop some cheese. All can be easy and she can add something else each week

They need to learn. Both of them.

One of my kids was an extremely fussy eater, and only ate tiny amounts. I believe he would have died if I hadn't given him the things he liked. Thankfully one of those things was milk, which probably saved him.
I don't think that is the issue here.
OP , is she one of those people who takes a pride in ignoring advice on purpose? I've noticed some people like to think they're getting one over the 'nanny state', by drinking , not exercising and eating a crap diet. I saw a programme about a woman like this, she deliberately fed her kids crap like Mcdonalds, even though her partner (the childrens dad) was a trained chef and was happy to cook proper meals for his family. It was as if she was doing it out of spite, or just because she could.
Just to address a point made upthread (because it often comes up on these threads) beans on toast isn't 'crap'. It's actually a well balanced meal. Grains (bread, even white bread) and beans together make up complete protein, also contains fibre and some vitamins. In fact it's probably the best meal a very poor family could give their kids, and they wouldn't be constipated either.

This is neglect not fussy eating. For one thing pot noodles are revolting, plus lots of different textures and bits make them fussy eaters hell. So they don't sound that fussy at all to me.

I have 2 ridiculously fussy kids a similar age to your friends. I do produce nice meals, e.g. cottage pie but they just turn their noses up which is disheartening. DD has been known to have just bread for dinner, DS a bowl of plain pasta. They are so limited in what they will eat that I just give in. They will eat selected fruit and veg though.

ihateminecraft I've been there. Hang in, it does get better . My son learnt about healthy eating at school and that made him try a few new things. He still doesn't like a lot of things but he does eat proper meals.

i had a brown sauce sandwich the other day when i didnt have much inthe kids were at school though i wouldnt have fed them brown sauce butties!

Do you know for sure OP that what you see is representative of what they eat? I know that if we have people over informally and I am not expecting to provide a meal but the DC are hungry I will often just bung a frozen pizza in the oven. I could have certain friends who are right now composing posts which say "AIBU to be concerned about my friend who eats well herself but only ever feeds her DC Dr Oetkers frozen pizza?"

My DCs eat very well but if I'm chatting to a friend I'm not going to make that friend feel uncomfortable and like they need to leave by starting to cook a full meal for my children.

theres a big differance between a frozen pizza though and what the op describes isnt there ?My kids sometimes have frozen pizza last night they had sausage and chips but they also have cottage pie ,spaghetti bolagnese and a whole host of other meals.

There is a big difference but I might just as easily say have a piece of toast.

Its just seems strange that anyone would only feed their child as described by the OP. I just wondered whether the OP only ever sees the snack they're given because the friend knows she'll be feeding them later.

Clearly if thats all they eat it is a concern.

Re sugar sandwiches, yes! My mum said that her lunch everyday was sugar mixed with a little butter and spread on bread, and my fil is a big believer in the health benefits of jelly.......even making a bowl for dd1 at 3 months olds because it's 'good for babies'...apparently (I gently refused and ended up having to eat the bloody stuff myself - bleurgh)

There are 2 things going on in this thread though - the type of diet which the op is talking about, which comes from a different place than the diet of people with food issues. I hate calling it fussiness, because with the children I know who have limited diets - including Ds - it is beyond 'fussy' or 'picky' eating. I have 2 other children, they both went through 'fussy' phases, it was not in the same league as the problems that Ds has had with food.

Alice talks crap. Fussiness isn't due to lazy parenting. Only an idiot would believe so. This isn't fussy eating, this is neglect.
I wonder if she's already been flagged on the Schools radar? Surely the kids being so unhealthy and thin looking plus tired and lethargic is a coarse for concern?,
Personally I would be making a referral to children's services. I think it's gone too far, no amount of you cooking for them or tidying her house is going to shift her brain into mothering mode. All you'd be doing is papering the cracks until you've gone and they're back to eating ketchup sandwiches.

exactly hazey ds2 has asd and learning disabillities his diet can be limited but its not fussiness and not through a lack of trying on my part its down to his disabillities he also suffers with constipation and his diet probably doesnt help but i do what i can ds1 who has no special needs went through a very fussy stage but he typically grew out of it and his diet is a lot better and more varied now.

If fussy eating was down to poor parenting, there would be no families with one fussy kid and one omnivorous kid, would there?

I know a woman who has two sons: one of them will eat whatever is put in front of him and the other refuses all vegetables and most meat.

It is ignorant to assert that parents of fussy eaters are to blame.

I do think fussy eaters can be made though certainly not all are made.
I also think fussiness can be made worse by parents reactions to the child's fussy behaviour.

I also think fussiness can be made worse by parents reactions to the child's fussy behaviour.

I think with the many different reasons behind extreme food issues, it is understandable that sometimes as parent's we might take an approach that won't work with that particular child, which is the case for any behaviour that a child displays.

What works for one child might not work for another.

What works for one part of a child's issue (eg ds's compulsion to eat as much butter as is humanly possible) will be different to what works for another part of a child's issues (ds's fear and disgust over any sort of sauce)

Eating together as a family, and eating with peers and teachers at school, mean that the reactions of everybody who deals with the child's issue is important.

Ds's dietician has had to work with his school (which is a resource base for children with complex needs within a Ms school) because their normal approaches and the approach that they proposed with ds, just made everything worse, with Ds refusing to even go in the hall.

It really isn't very black and white, God I wish it was!

YANBU

After years of fussy eating I lost my rag and started to operate a zero tolerance approach to my neice. Sheis now no longer allowed to refuse anything she puts on her plate. Once it's on that's what she must eat even if I have to refrigerate it for her to eat the following morning. If she causes a fuss all her favourite food (cheese, yoghurt, icecream etc) is taken away and binned and I don't buy them again. She's now become much less fussy - I hate doing it but just last night she ate (and enjoyed) aubergines for the first time, so it's working. Of course now I'm the strict aunt, so I'm no longer her 'best friend' but I can live with that.