to let DS have a McDonald's each week?

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DS is a swimmer and swims with a squad that's 45 mins away. He starts training at 6:30 and comes out at 8 (pm btw) and it's very convenient for this day. He is healthy and slim and on all the other days has a good, balanced diet.

Is this seriously so bad?

cleocat55 are you just saying this because you're a cat?

My cat has never had a McDonald's either - perhaps he'll end up with obesity issues too?!

Actually McDonalds use a high quality beef, bread and some salad...the chips salt content is reduced.... it isn't bad in moderation...

@LovePeaceAndHarmony Nae bother. Regarding the all walks of life part, I am working class and live on an estate but my DH is a chef and I've just asked him his opinion on McDonald's, his answer was "Shite". He also made the point that we used to live very close to a McDonald's and never used it so in our case it's not about being from our "walk of life" so much as that it's different strokes for different folks even within our (shitty!) area.

@AndTakeYourHorseWithYou Re *And all those walks of life know of the existence of chicken nuggets, whether they eat them or not.

Smuggery gets you nowhere.*

As I stated in my reply to @LovePeaceAndHarmony my son did not know what chicken nuggets were and I was surprised at that because he has had chicken dippers. I haven't RTFT since @LovePeaceAndHarmony's post tagging me so I apologise if I've missed much that you've said since.

If you're ok with it you're not breaking any laws OP. It's fine. Once a week won't do anyone any harm it's a matter of choice more than anything . I don't think anyone really cares how others feed their children to be honest. Mine will never have salt , sugar or processed food until they can buy it with their own money. I just cant be asked to have them getting used to the "once a week/month treat " and then I will have to walk into smelly Mac D's... 😷😷 I don't eat fast food , I think it's cheap.

When DS was in crèche it was right beside McDonald 😡even though he was only tiny he cried for it after I collected him every single day. So he got it every Friday as a treat. He's still alive

Dunno what all those extra stars are about?! Apologies.

@MuvaWifey77, that's a very extreme statement though I applaud your intention to give your kids healthy eating habits. But are you really not going to allow them to eat party food, eat cake or ice creams? Or fish and chips when at the seaside? If you stick to that strategy rigidly, they will rebel. Or are you just making a point?

Muvawifey exactly, its crazy how people can believe that a food, that can not decompose, is just fine for our children to try & digest! Loving all the 'high quality' 'im still alive' comments people really should research the otherside of an advert! Ex mcdonalds employee also.

It's fine. It's sociable and a way of bonding with his squad.

But what you could do is teach him to make a burger, and get him to invite all his mates home to eat them.

Once he has got the hang of it he can get a few of them to help him out the day before to prep it all, so when they are tired and get back all they have to is cook everything.

Or if you are feeling generous, you can do the cooking.

A burger is just a meat omelette; quality minced beef, garlic, chilli, eggs, cayenne pepper, black pepper & salt.

Gruyere & Emmental cheese, mayo, ketchup & fresh rolls.

Chips cooked in olive oil, get one of those 3 litre tubs from Asda for a tenner.

On a hot day bbq them or cook them on an iron skillet.

They will soon get bored of MacDonald's!

We like to call McDonalds 'the Scottish restaurant', like Macbeth is 'the Scottish play' . It's like it's bad luck to even say the name

That is just so deliciously pretentious and middle class - I love it!

YANBU though - in fact, I think you have the perfect attitude to it. It's convenience food on the way back from an activity because it's too late to cook anything. That takes away it's 'treat' status and makes it what it is - fast food. Not especially healthy but not evil and not some kind of forbidden treat to feel guilty over.

I had a Mcdonalds every week for years as a child because there was no time to go home between dance classes and brownies/guides. It seems that the majority of us on this thread have similar stories. Yet our generation is set to be slimmer and healthier than our children's, even though we obsess over and dissect every morsel that goes into their mouths.

Unfortunately, I now have a fairly deep rooted fear of Mcdonalds (this thread is helping actually) and have never taken my children there (they have been though). But I have anorexia and have half believed all the Mcdonalds horror stories (chicken dyed white to make it look like it's not the rubbishy leftover bits, burgers and fries kept for months without going mouldy, lard in the ice cream etc). I would far, far rather have the attitude of going once a week and enjoying it being no bad thing.

However, in defence of the Mcdonalds haters, it is surely worse than a ham sandwich and crisps or fishfingers and chips at home.

Fishfingers and chips in Mcdonalds are deep fried. There must be far more calories and fat grams in them than doing them at home in the oven. Unless you happen to have a deep fat fryer at home I suppose but I don't think many people do.

And a ham sandwich and crisps would have approx:
2 slices of bread - 170 calories and 2g of fat
couple slices of ham - 60 calories and 3g of fat
bit of butter maybe - 50 calories and 5g of fat
bag of hula hoops - 120 calories and 6g of fat
Total - 400 calories and 16g of fat

Whereas:
Big Mac Meal with medium fries - 845 calories and 42g fat
Hamburger Happy Meal (no drink) - 487 calories and 20g fat

Having done all that research, I'm now actually really surprised to be proved almost wrong on the Happy Meal front - 400 vs 487 and 16 vs 20 isn't that big an improvement at all!

Seems to show you definitely shouldn't give children the adult meals though!

Not sure I'd feel the need to ask this question. If you're fit and healthy, then who's opinion matters but your own. I often find that the food police people who do have strong opinions on the food habits of others, are often the ones who have food or weight issues themselves.
I know some school mums who don't allow their kids biscuits or chocolate other than rare treats, whereas my kids have always been allowed to help themselves. It's important to develop our own autonomy, appetite should not be 'trained'. Their kids become obsessed about the forbidden fruits. One child came for a play date and scoffed an entire packet of Oreos when I wasn't looking. She couldn't help herself. Her mother openly talks about her weight issues, and is projecting her food anxiety onto her child. And this is is not an common theme. Enjoy those MCDs op!

If you are a person who has a box mac meal there is no way I would only be having one round of sandwiches at home instead. So double everything, and probably chuck some cheese on the sandwich as well

It's fine. We pick up
A happy meal at the drive through on the way back from swimming. Kids need to learn about the fact it's ok to have treats in moderation. Force feeding lentil burgers every night doesn't teach them about health choices learning when it's ok to have the odd treat does

Ooh thanks for that manic so a happy meal has the same calories as many weight watchers meals, I know where I'm off for tea

McDs is no big deal, everything in moderation as they say. I take my kids every Thursday lunchtime (pre schoolers) as it's my day off and it's a wee treat. They love it.

About the posters comment about becoming obese, I actually worked in McDs as a 16 year old. You got a free meal on each shift, so during school holidays I ate 5 times a week! I was a size 6. Remained a healthy weight until I had to have half of my thyroid removed due to a suspicious lump. Yes I'm now overweight (not obese btw) and it's down to thyroid issues and not evil McDonalds.

Oh! I also have a cousin in law who worked at McDs at the same time as me, she never left, is now a manager, eats McDs often and is around a size 8. Always has been.

Mumto2two, no food issues here I'm pleased to report. As well as trying not to feed utter rubbish to my son, I care about animal welfare and the environment, further issues that McDonalds are famously murky about. If we all stopped eating their trash it'd do wonders for the state our world is in. (I'm now waiting to be told that the beef is hand reared and massaged and slaughtered humanely and individually in the back garden of a small holding somewhere. No?)

The French poster earlier had it right. Without restoring to cultural stereotypes, much better for a treat to be good quality steak and dauphinoise potatoes and a chocolate mousse, say - crammed full of calories but utterly delicious and made with ingredients that are entirely as they should be. I don't understand the logic that people who don't eat McDonald's have some kind of food hang up. I feed my son every food going and we make all kinds of delicious treats at home but that doesn't mean he has to experience shite food to be a fully formed child!

My DS is a swimmer too and I also take him to him MacDs once a week.

He trains twice on a Monday ( 3.5 hours swimming in total) and then 90mins on a Wednesday , a hour on a Friday and 2 hours on a Saturday morning.

I don't think a MacDs breakfast once a week even registers after that much swimming!

What genuinely confuses me is how eating McDs can be considered a treat. I love a treat myself McDs seems like a last resort.

No food issues here either, so happy to help you put that theory to bed.

I also can't understand the 'treat' mentality. McDonald's. It's not good food, it all tastes mediocre and samey. I'd prefer to teach DS what genuinely good food tastes like and gets his treats that way.

McDonald's only delivers on convenience in my eyes, both its taste credentials and nutritional value are poor.

Shock horror, people have different tastes naked. Is that really so difficult to understand?

I'd say you are a barrel of laughs. Snore!!!

Is it hard to understand that we are facing a health crisis in this country which is partly precipitated by people being habituated to poor food choices?

Is it hard to understand that we are facing a health crisis in this country which is partly precipitated by people being habituated to poor food choices?

Did you misunderstand the word "treat"?