Something my FIL says (ED related)

[BrilliantBetty]

I have two young DDs. Eldest is 6 and questioning everything, remembers little things and can be quite serious / thoughtful.

Every time we celebrate a birthday and there's cake, or Christmas and there's chocolate etc. My FIL will make a comment like 'we can eat this piece of cake because we've had a long walk and used up lots of energy'. Or 'yes I'll have a couple of biscuits with my tea, I did run 15k yesterday', 'we shouldn't really be eating this, we'll need to do some exercise'. He is quite fitness obsessed which is great for him but I don't like the repeated comments to my DDs about being able to eat something because of such & such.

My DD(6) has picked up on it.
She's not overweight, none of us are. I am worrying that these comments, while not exactly wrong, could manifest and be some sort of contributing factor to eating disorder later on. I lost a very close friend quite a while ago to anorexia and from threads on here I see that it's not such an uncommon thing.

Anyway AIBU to feel these comments are not good.

I think all of this insouciance about food is grand if you're a family with a race horse metabolism but in the real world it is not giving your child an eating disorder to point out hey, that's yr third biscuit. One was a treat. Two was one too many. Stop now.

But I would say stop eating all the biscuits - but I wouldn't do the whole spelling out - biscuits - empty calories - need to exercise - shape - health all the time - like this FinL does. Most kids get that over-eating snacks isn't great without us going on and on - and killing the joy of both food and sports.

YANBU It’s not a terrible attitude, but if he’s saying it at things like birthdays and christmas then it’s a buzzkill and I would be rolling my eyes (internally).

I’m wondering though is there’s a back story and he annoys you in other ways?

Not really. We get on really well most of the time and spend quite a lot of time with him. He's a fantastic grandad and FIL.
Occasional I wish he'd pick up on my subtle hints about things, that's all. I don't like to say things too bluntly that could be taken as rude and he only responds to v direct conversation. But that's for another thread!

There isca connection between what you eat and yr waistline though. That is just fact.

But why the need to talk about it every time you eat?

I think it's a healthy message. Food is fuel. If you've burned more fuel through exercise then you can eat more food. If you haven't burned any through exercise you need to eat less otherwise you'll be unhealthy.

But children DO need to grow up with an inherent knowledge of calories and exercise. If it's not natural knowledge that they just know (having heard discussion about it since they were too young to really understand it and it is second nature to know that too many cakes with too little exercise is a bad thing), then when IS the right time to introduce it? When they are an overweight 14 year old?

OP, your child will hear all sorts of nonsense growing up (not that I think this particular thing is, but...), so it becomes a case of what YOU do to mitigate it. You can't stop people spouting their own beliefs, you CAN sit your child down and have a discussion abut how different people think and give a balanced opinion. For example, my dad is a homophobic racist, spouts all sorts of utter crap, but my daughter, who is now 12, knows that grandad is an unchangeable dinosaur and just says "Oh grandad....!" because I sat her down and had a discussion because I am the parent... She is neither homophobic or racist.

I agree with you, OP and I would have a quiet word with him.

Eating Disorders and obesity aren’t mutually exclusive or separate issues and I think that this message is actually counterproductive in addressing obesity risk. 80% of ED sufferers are ‘normal’ or overweight. Disordered eating is normalised in our society and I wouldn’t want that around my children.

I don’t let my dc overeat but say things like ‘our bodies need all different kinds of food’ and we exercise because it’s good for our bodies and minds, it makes our heart and lungs stronger, it makes us happier etc etc.

I don’t call food a treat.

I’m probably more aware having suffered from a severe ED for 16 years when I was younger and seen many people die. But far more living a half-life dominated by obsessive thoughts about food.

@BrilliantBetty

He hadn’t said anything about getting fat

He does say things about getting fat / fat people sometimes too. But it's not the main thing said.

I think this changes things a bit. Encouraging sweet foods in moderation and exercising is ok but coupled with this it would make me a bit uncomfortable about it

I completely get where you're coming from. This is what anorexics often do - will have to do vigorous exercise after anything passes their lips.

The division of food into good and bad is a really unhelpful thing to teach young children.

I'd have a quiet word. Incidentally I thought your post was about eating disorders rather than erections I'd guess that says that I have more experience of the former than the latter!

I like that message and will use it for my own daughter. Not just that ‘exercise burns calories so x activity means y food fits into your balanced diet’ (although I do want her to be aware of that) but also the general greater pleasure of eating treat food after a hunger-inducing activity. Also, I tend to think one of the best things that can happen for a girl’s body image (regarding weight, anyway) is for her to not get overweight in the first place.

I think I’d not worry
As it’s not ED , it’s stating the very clear fact that exercise means you burn off calories
Something we have learnt this last few months

What @Clymene said.

I don't think this is a healthy message at all. Your daughter shouldn't feel like she has to justify her eating (like your FIL is doing) and the more she hears this the more she will feel like she can't make her own food choices without having to go and do a load of exercise.

It's very easy for disordered eating to start with these sorts of ideas.

@Clymene

I mentioned that I lost a friend to anorexia. I was young, year 9 at school so about 14. I don't remember much about her illness, she was away in hospital a lot of the time. But earlier on, before it all started she was always exercising like star jumps etc if we we'd had lunch. That was v young like late primary school. She connected food to having to do exercise. So I guess my DC making that connection scares me a bit.

(My friend she was so much more than her ED, I just want to say she was brilliant at drawing and so creative)

It's her grand father. Your approach to.it will have much weight over her growing views on the matter and in any case, it's not a bad approach to.it, nor even wrong.

Relax, she's not going to end up with an eating disorder just because if few reasonable words from her granddad.

I think the ´food is fuel’ message is ok for kids. As in, you need to eat to be able to run and around play and grow big and strong’ and that you need to eat a balance of difference foods because you need different kinds of building blocks to make bones and muscle and skin etc. The thing is, that’s not what your FIL is doing. It’s what he thinks he’s doing. What he is actually doing is saying eating this particular food (chocolate/cake or whatever) is a BAD thing but we can atone for it by exercising. It’s setting up an idea that exercise is a self inflicted punishment for eating delicious sugary junk food. If he’s fit and active then he’s probably also modeling better attitudes to exercise at the same time like ´this walk/run/swim will be fun and make you feel good’ or ´I sleep better after exercise’.

Sorry - I’ve just realised that one of your examples of things he says is, “we shouldn’t really be eating this, we’ll need to do some exercise” which I would hate. The other two are positive but that’s not on at all.

I talk like this sometimes. When we go hillwalking or paddling. I bring lots of treats to keep them going. Draw a line between extra treats and lots of exercise.

Sometimes the Dc will ask to do a big walk with a picnic so they do understand.

Damaging talk is more of a I can’t eat that I’ll get fat or you shouldn’t eat that as you’ll get fat chat.

@Woeismethischristmas

I talk like this sometimes. When we go hillwalking or paddling. I bring lots of treats to keep them going. Draw a line between extra treats and lots of exercise.

Sometimes the Dc will ask to do a big walk with a picnic so they do understand.

Damaging talk is more of a I can’t eat that I’ll get fat or you shouldn’t eat that as you’ll get fat chat.

But you see as @BrilliantBetty and I have had direct experience of EDs (and I'm so sorry for your friend Betty - what an absolute tragedy), this can easily sow the seeds for disordered eating. My sister spent most of her year 9 in hospital and her anorexia dominated our family for years.

Making foods into rewards can create really unhealthy beliefs between good food and bad food.

People on this thread on the whole seem to be a lot more concerned about their children getting fat than either dying or suffering from lifelong consequences from EDs.

I agree with you OP, this sounds like a message with a lot of potential to result in disordered eating. I guess what you do about it depends on how many meals DDs will eat with FIL.

Me too!

It needs to stop. I knew a 10 year old girl who used to parrot this sort of nonsense continuously. She’d only eat if she felt she’d exercised enough and would regularly do “cardio” before allowing herself to have breakfast. She got it from her fitness mad father. He saw nothing wrong with the behaviour and encouraged it.

Her parents were in complete denial that she was severely underweight until she collapsed and was hospitalised. She nearly died. She ended up in a residential unit and missed a year of school. It has severely affected her mentally.

Please don’t let her grow up thinking of food as a “reward”, she can only eat if she’s exercised enough or burnt enough calories.

Mumsnet is the wrong place to ask this sort of question, OP, it's full of people with disordered eating. For myself, as someone who battled an eating disorder for years but was never technically underweight, those sorts of "this food is bad and must be counteracted with exercise" comments led me to associate food with impurity and, because exercise was something which I thought of as exposing and humiliating (thanks, school PE lessons) I would purge it instead. I think your instincts to talk about food and exercise in a neutral way are correct and you are right to want to ask your FIL to lay off the "we shouldn't be eating this" comments.

I would be very surprised if anyone developed an eating disorder hearing what their healthy and fit grandparent said at age 6.