To not understand why some parents make such poor food choices for their kids?

[Quit4me]

I was standing behind a mum with 2 children in a queue the other day. One child was a baby laying almost flat in a pram aged about 3 months. The other was around 6. The baby was really sweet smiling out of the pram which is what drew my attention to them. Then she grizzled and the mum said ‘whopps sorry I took away the milk buttons didn’t I. She was feeding her (the baby) milkybar buttons. Quite a lot of them.
I then noticed that that the mum was overweight, the nan who was also with them was overweight and most sadly the 6 year old was very overweight /obese.
Why would any mum be feeding their 3 month old chocolate? Obviously the whole family and little girl could have had a medical condition but Barring that why don’t parents see that feeding them sugar and too many processed foods early on is creating so many health problems for their children?
It makes me actually quite angry and sad for the children and I cringe seeing it.
Yes I know it’s none of my business directly, but this is everyone’s business because it’s a huge problem for the UK and is going to increase multi fold in the coming years.

[DaphneDuBois]

Well, you’re obviously right that it’s not healthy but equally they could probably find something to judge about your own poor parenting choice or anyone else’s on here. Maybe you don’t read to your children or you swear in front of them or let them stay up late so they are constantly tired at school or let them have way too much screen time or barely spend any time with them or don’t get them to exercise enough. Some of those things create problems for the state to deal with so it’s not just obesity. People make poor parenting decisions in all kinds of ways but obesity is just a very visible one so easy to call out.

[PattyPan]

Well, I make it without sugar and it tastes nice so it can’t be that essential! Like I said, it’s more about the wider process of how people think about what they are preparing. I have heard so many people say they don’t know how much pasta/rice to make and always get it wrong. I’ve seen memes saying the same thing so I’m assuming it’s a widespread issue. I weigh it out dry so we cook the right amount and I’m always surprised that doesn’t seem to occur to people. Kitchen scales can be bought for less than £10, so not prohibitively expensive for most people.

[FoxyTheFox]

It's not unnecessary though, it's needed to balance the recipe out rather than just sugar for sugar's sake.

As for portion size, 500ml of homemade tomato sauce - tomatoes, sugar, salt, balsamic, basil - (which is enough to serve 4-6 people depending on age/appetite/portion size) would be less than 170 calories, not even 10% of a daily recommendation of 2000 calories. To go over 2000 calories you'd need to eat almost 6 times that amount, pretty much three litres of sauce. You'd be sick before you finished it or soon enough afterwards. Even if you added an entire 500g bag of white pasta to the original 500ml of sauce, that's still only 650 calories and most people would struggle to eat all of it without getting full and/or being sick. If they somehow did that's still a total of 820 calories and less than half of the recommended 2000 a day.

So again, a teaspoon of sugar in homemade pasta sauce is not the problem.

[PattyPan]

It’s just unnecessary added sugar is all, and just sort of signalled to me that people aren’t necessarily thinking about what’s healthy when they’re cooking. I imagine the main issue with cooking from scratch is portion sizes - it’s very easy to cook too much and just serve and eat it all anyway and doing so regularly will cause weight gain.

[FoxyTheFox]

A teaspoon of sugar added to homemade tomato sauce to balance out the flavour and reduce the acidity of the tomatoes is hardly the cause of a rise in obesity levels. Perspective and all that.

[PattyPan]

I’ve just been reading a thread about how people add sugar to bolognese so I’m not sure that cooking from scratch is the answer

[DeusEx]

@FoxyTheFox

But stew is cheap to make, as it cottage pie, vegetable curry, 3 bean chilli can all be made under £5 and fill you up.

They take longer to cook though and there is a link between food poverty and fuel poverty. Lack of skills and knowledge also comes into it. If you know how to cook frozen pizza and chips but don't know how to cook vegetable chilli then you'll cook frozen pizza and chips, not everyone has the wherewithal to know how to find or follow a recipe, believe it or not but there are people living such chaotic lives that it is a hindrance to their day to day function. There are also access issues. As discussed upthread, people in food poverty are more likely to only have access to corner shops/mini-marts for the bulk of their shopping where prices are higher and range is limited so they might know full well how to make a three bean chilli but that's no good if the shop doesn't stock the ingredients. Over one million people in the UK live in a food desert, if a big name supermarket isn't in convenient reach then you can't take advantage of the cheaper prices (I know my nearest one is a £6.90 adult return fare away plus £3.45 return per child). Online shopping requires a bank card and a minimum spend of £40, not much help if your budget is less than that.

"But why can't they just do/make this" doesn't address the underlying issues.

Great post @FoxyTheFox

[CovidCrow]

Yes we snacked less but were smacked more

[Liquorishtoffee]

Snacked. Geez my autocorrect...

[Liquorishtoffee]

Smacked less. I’m sure there was more smacking back then.

[Liquorishtoffee]

DS didn’t like chocolate until he was about ten. Hated the stuff (strange child).

I’m all for letting children try a bit of everything - but I don’t like to see small children in a pram tucking into a grab bag of crisps (so much salt!)

I mainlined sugar as a child but we were mostly skinny minnies in the 70s weren’t we? Maybe we smacked less and were more active.

[Frequentflier]

Sigh. My own kids at that age were fed lentils, okra and spinach. ( I am not kidding). But I struggle to care so much what other people feed their babies that I start a thread.

[Countrygirl2021]

Frequentflier

Given that we have been in a pandemic for a year now, I think parents of small children should be given a lot of latitude. Not ideal food, but honestly, she might be at the end of her tether, like a lot of people

No being in a pandemic dies not mean we excuse bad parenting or start feeding children badly. maybe we are all a bit busier juggling work and schooling but basics like nutrition should not slip.

[CovidCrow]

You saw what half hr out of a mum"s day,called her fat and judged her parenting .How do you know she does it daily

I'm guessing the obese 6 year old gives us a fairly big clue

[VicarofDibley]

This will horrify you op growing up in the 70"s our DG had a sweet tin the horror of .We used to raid it none of us diabetic and still have our teeth and all fine , not obese .Curious though how do you know the age for a fact.You saw what half hr out of a mum"s day,called her fat and judged her parenting .How do you know she does it daily .Then i would be yeap that is not good too much but you don"t know do you ?

[Wondermule]

This thread has prompted me to think about what nutritional advice is actually offered to women in pregnancy. Turns out there is quite a lot:

1. Healthy start fruit and veg vouchers for low income pregnant women
   
2. Free weaning courses at children’s centres (I attended one, it was brilliant)
   
3. There’s a whole NHS page on diet in pregnancy with meal ideas
   
4. Low income women get a maternity grant that can be spent on health food etc if they wish
   

I think that is a fairly reasonable level of education and support.

[ResIpsaLoquiturInterAlia]

I understand obesity is a relatively recent current generational lifestyle issue. Therefore perhaps we need to carefully examine the recent lifestyle, catering and food supply choices to eliminate the crap and return to more healthy foods and drinks and ban junk. I am sure there was less ultra processed chemicals passed off as marketed foods back in time. Plus people knew how to self cater and had a passion for cooking and not watching Netflix and ordering in yet another fast food takeout while seating on the sofa forgetting to exercise apart from lifting a finger for the remote control and smartphone app for food delivery.

A bit in jest perhaps but it's not far from the truth is it in many households fat and not so fat!

Cheap food should not be the toxic supermarket ultra processed junk but taxed like cigarettes and this junk highly processed convenient food tax used to supplement and lower the price of real food etc.

[FoxyTheFox]

But stew is cheap to make, as it cottage pie, vegetable curry, 3 bean chilli can all be made under £5 and fill you up.

They take longer to cook though and there is a link between food poverty and fuel poverty. Lack of skills and knowledge also comes into it. If you know how to cook frozen pizza and chips but don't know how to cook vegetable chilli then you'll cook frozen pizza and chips, not everyone has the wherewithal to know how to find or follow a recipe, believe it or not but there are people living such chaotic lives that it is a hindrance to their day to day function. There are also access issues. As discussed upthread, people in food poverty are more likely to only have access to corner shops/mini-marts for the bulk of their shopping where prices are higher and range is limited so they might know full well how to make a three bean chilli but that's no good if the shop doesn't stock the ingredients. Over one million people in the UK live in a food desert, if a big name supermarket isn't in convenient reach then you can't take advantage of the cheaper prices (I know my nearest one is a £6.90 adult return fare away plus £3.45 return per child). Online shopping requires a bank card and a minimum spend of £40, not much help if your budget is less than that.

"But why can't they just do/make this" doesn't address the underlying issues.

[Testingtimesheet]

There are already a lot of low key measures- healthy eating classes, weighing at schools etc. @Gwenhwyfar you hit the nail on the head- the cheap sugary food brings in the money and is heavily promoted. I’ve found Waitrose tends to have a huge fruit and veg area in my local town and it does encourage me to buy more fruit and veg. Lots of people are in denial about their eating habits. Food is also seen as a treat to be eaten as a reward, or after a long day. If it was viewed in an Ayurvedic way- as medicine, I am sure our eating habits would change.

[Gwenhwyfar]

@AmaryllisNightAndDay

I would be interested to hear some suggestions from those outraged by this thread about what should be done about obesity, if anything.

If there was an easy answer society would have done it by now.

The answers are there, it's the political will that's lacking, fears of being unpopular with the population and lobbying from junk food companies.

[Testingtimesheet]

I’ve just found out it’s actually illegal to be fat in Japan! You don’t get imprisoned or fined but there is a law prohibiting being above a certain weight. Elderly people get yearly health and weight checks. We are due to visit next year so I’m going on a swift diet.

[Countrygirl2021]

if your from a low income family, 3 frozen pizzas for £5 that will fill the kids up, or a selection of fruit that's not as filling

But stew is cheap to make, as it cottage pie, vegetable curry, 3 bean chilli can all be made under £5 and fill you up.

People can't be bothered to / don't know how to cook. I also come back to this strange concept of what to feed children where pizza, animal shaped breaded things, chips and baked beans is considered a meal.

If you have never fed them a turkey dinosaur they don't know they exist so don't ask for them. If children think food is rice, veg, meat, potatoes from early on then you can encourage healthier diets.

I came back to why do parents put squash into water to encourage a sweet taste?

[AlohaMolly]

@PattyPan I love that link! DS is gluten intolerant and it makes it so hard to get child sized portions when we go out to eat because so many places have breaded fish/chicken and pasta as the options available. Most of the time if I ask for a smaller adult portion of something he can eat and will enjoy like a curry, they’ll make a fuss. It baffles me as to why more restaurants can’t just make smaller versions of their adult menus.

[PattyPan]

It was the Soil Association who looked at children’s menus, for anyone interested. They have a campaign called Out To Lunch and the criteria include the number of portions of vegetables, whether they push sugary drinks, and pudding portion sizes as well as stuff less connected to health like food provenance: www.soilassociation.org/causes-campaigns/out-to-lunch/

[SeldomFollowedIt]

I think it’s possibly just a lack of education. I’m guilty of giving my own children far too many refined carbs. Mainly pasta and rice during this pandemic as me and my husband both lost our jobs. So I’ve been bulking the dinners up with cheap carbs. They’re active and we keep all other added sugar intake low but I still don’t feel great about it. New job starts soon so I’ll be able to buy better food.