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.

@VinylDetective

Every thread about obesity centres on food. Kids now get so little exercise. They’re driven everywhere and spend most of the time they’re not at school indoors. You never see kids out playing and just running around like they used to. There would be fewer fat kids if their screens were taken away and they got a bit of fresh air and exercise.

@VinylDetective the children in our village seem to roam free from around the age of 7. In summer 2019 I used to take DS for walks in the village and we’d see gangs of preteens on their bikes in their wetsuits, playing on the bridges and by the lake.

As is the case in nearly everything, you can’t judge the entirety of ‘the children’ by your snapshot.

don't get fat now...

Food is the primary cause for obesity, not lack of exercise. Exercise is obviously essential to a healthy lifestyle but you have to do a lot of exercise to burn off small amounts of junk food.

I posted above about my mother feeding me custard at 2 months old and have been thinking about it a bit more. I have PCOS now, one of those medical conditions that make it hard to maintain a healthy weight. There’s an argument to be made that it was caused by a poor childhood diet (either through being overweight or through inflammation caused by the food). I’m sure this isn’t a unique scenario, so it’s worth considering whether later health conditions may be improved or averted through better childhood nutrition.

@Bagamoyo1 - I got it from the OP. The one where she was asking if fat parents feeding their baby, chocolate buttons was ok? We all know it isn't but she clearly wants to whip up a storm. It won't educate fat people but it will give other posters the chance to join in the judging.

@LuckyC27

I’m a ftm who has recently started weaning my 7 month old. All the advice out there is for extremely healthy foods, start with single veg, no added sugar or salt etc etc. So the information is out there however my mum and mil weaned between 3 and 4 months, we were given tea from an early age, squash and juice instead of water, biscuits, baby rice in milk bottles which are all obviously big no nos now. If the lady is following her mum or mils advice she may not have the right info, I’ve already had to bin a pack of children’s biscuits full of sugar mil bought for my baby.

This too. My MIL wanted to feed my son custard for his first food. As it happens, we kept DS refined sugar free for his first year BUT it caused actual rows where MIL burst into tears at least twice, because it’s her god given right to give my son sugar.

It was a really stressful time period and it would have been a lot easier had I just let her do it. If my MH had been worse I might just well have.

I agree OP. I have a friend who when I saw her last for a coffee (pre-lockdown) gave her 2 year old 3 packs of crisps and a pack of biscuits to keep him occupied during our 30 min chat. He hadn't played up at any point, he is a lovely well behaved child. This was at about 10 in the morning. It's hard not to judge people sometimes.

@Ileflottante

The OP is not a new poster so I’m not sure what to make of this thread. You seem, however, to be very accurate in your ageing of the children.

Obviously a little baby should not be given chocolate. It sounds like, if this is true, then it is down to a distinct lack of education on the subject. Which is why, on a separate note, I cannot understand why how to live and feed yourself healthily, as well as an understanding of managing finances, is not taught in schools.

Not rtft but it IS taught in schools! Here in Scotland every child has Home Economics which teaches healthy diet and budgeting and also some life finance in Maths.

Check your facts before you teacher bash.

How on earth do you know what I’ve decided about the mother!!? Even I don’t know what I’ve decided! Nowhere did I say anyone was lazy, feckless or anything of the sort! Goodness me, some people calling me judgemental on here need to take a look in the mirror at themselves!!

Oh, please! Stop with the wide eyed, faux “I was only saying bullshit.

@Whatwouldscullydo

How were you close enough to see the baby? What happened to social distancing

Babies are still visible from 2m away

I completely agree, OP - and I’m currently very overweight (trying to lose). I also had very bad PND when my DD was a baby but still always managed to make healthy food for her. I don’t buy that as an excuse. It boggles my mind how someone could think it ok to give a young baby chocolate!

@Whatwouldscullydo

“Why would a parent who loves their child and wants the best for them also do something which seems from an outside perspective to be counterintuitive to that desire, and what might be the broader background to and external forces behind why many people knowingly make poor food choices generally?” might be a better place to start than some unlikely story about seeing a fat woman feeding her baby sweets and wondering how she could be so stupid

I think that's probably a better way to think about it really. I mean one minute your judged for your kid having a tantrum the next you are judged fir giving them.sweets to keep them.quiet. you are judged when you are the only one out if the group of the parents at the park with the kids who isn't feeding them within 15 mins of getting there. You are judged if your face and body don't fit at the swimming pool or gym class you enrolled your kids into to get then.tbe exercise. You then find the class stops after 20 mins fir a snack.break. you are judged when your.kids eat junk but also judged for expecting a play date to eat anything not covered in bread crumbs.

I think as a society we seem to be afraid to say no to our kids . Too worried someone's going to judge you fir the tantrum that results from.saying no.

We need to stop giving a crap really, accept our kids might cry sometimes and not be so.hard on ourselves.

Exactly this. from when my ds was weaned he had breakfast, lunch and dinner with small treats after lunch and dinner as an afters. Oh my fucking god the judgement because I allowed him to build an appetite and eat a real meal (never had a fussy stage until he started school and ate on their timetable), I had to overlook so many annoying comments and much undermining, apparently it's everyone's business when you do things differently from whats fashion at the time. Everyone I met up with wanted to pacify my toddler with rice cakes or malt loaf when he was bored and whiny, so it would occupy him then they could point out the error of my ways that he was 'hungry'. I wish people would learn to look the other way when a child has a tantrum or when a parent does something different to them. I couldn't care less what other peoples kids eat because I'm selfish and I don't see my role as a passer by to be that important. Live and let live.

@MintyMabel

How on earth do you know what I’ve decided about the mother!!? Even I don’t know what I’ve decided! Nowhere did I say anyone was lazy, feckless or anything of the sort! Goodness me, some people calling me judgemental on here need to take a look in the mirror at themselves!!

Oh, please! Stop with the wide eyed, faux “I was only saying bullshit.

What does that even mean? For goodness sake- I take it your an adult? If so, tell me where I have called anyone stupid fat or lazy or any names? You are judging me on things I haven’t even said, putting words and facial expressions into my words! You don’t know me and you don’t know how or why I’ve posted what I’ve posted. Mocking someone doesn’t make you better than me, it just makes you sound cruel and thoughtless.

Everyone I met up with wanted to pacify my toddler with rice cakes or malt loaf when he was bored and whiny, so it would occupy him then they could point out the error of my ways that he was 'hungry'. I wish people would learn to look the other way when a child has a tantrum or when a parent does something different to them

Grandparents are the worst. The parents who never let you snack and would drive several hours wotg no break and tell you " we will stop in a minute " suddenly turn into grand parents who wanna feed them cakes biscuits ice creams etc when you pop over in the morning. And then they moan they don't eat their lunch.

Its ok to be a bit hungry. Its ok to wait. Its ok to make them walk somewhere. That's what coats are for

@midsomermurderess

I could make similar observations about your SPAG, but that would be rather unkind, wouldn't it?

Someone's SPAG is not going to kill them or cause a lifetime of health problems though is it?

You have no idea how old that baby is.

I had snide comments from people when feeding my 7 month old, who was tiny because she was fucking premature, but yeah, you crack on with your amazing abilities to guess a babies age based on their size

This is strange. I didn’t give mine sweets until their first birthday because of weaning and then food allergy avoidance. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 3 month baby given any solid food of any kind ever.

YANBU.

"Lack of education" is a bit of a lazy argument as well. Everyone knows that chocolate is unhealthy and vegetables are healthy. It's really not difficult.

I'm overweight myself, not terribly so but about 2 stones too heavy. It IS down to my own poor eating choices, plain and simple.

DS is a healthy weight, always has been.

What is SPAG please?

@Anotheruser02

spelling, punctuation and grammar

Thank you.

YANBU. You’ll get endless justifications on here for why you shouldn’t judge this behaviour. And judging her achieves nothing. But you’re not wrong to recognise it’s appalling.

I doubt the baby was 3 months old, it wouldn’t even be weaned?

My generation started weaning at 3 months, some earlier. And babies don't need to be weaned to suck a chocolate button til it melts, if mum puts it in their mouth. Like a spoonful of mashed banana.

Firstly, there's the cost aspect - calorie for calorie, healthy foods cost something like 3 times more than unhealthy foods.

That's one of the things that has changed over the last 50-odd years. The price of food has come down (compared to household spending) but the price of sugary fatty food has come down much more. So the amount of sugary fatty food people can afford to eat (as well as portion size in general) have gone up over the generations.

My DH (probably your parents' generation) is not fat (see above) but had his teeth destroyed by a sugary diet in childhood. That was the first thing that happened when sugar was starting to become widely available to children. And people didn't realise, even doctors - my brother's teeth were also destroyed, not by sweets but by sugary medicine at bedtime.

Mumsnet is very extreme when it comes to DC's food. OP is being told off here for criticising quite an extreme example of poor food choices (chocolate buttons as a weaning food). Meanwhile on other boards, people are slammed if their child with an otherwise healthy diet doesn't exclusively drink water, or if their pre schooler has ever tried a biscuit. I once saw a poor poster accused of feeding their child 'shit in a bowl' because they had cereal for breakfast. Far worse judgy behaviour than the OP of this thread, but in those cases people pile on to agree. As usual, what is normal in the real world is somewhere in the middle.

You forgot about the greggs sausage roll and fruitshoot.

I don’t understand the people that are saying mind your own business, etc. Feeding a tiny baby chocolate is abuse, plain and simple. That poor child