To wonder why everyone is so keen to feed my child rubbish?

[Holidaytime86]

It seems like every time we meet up with family and friends someone will offer my one year old dilute juice, cake bars, chips, nuggets, crisps etc. AIBU to want to at least try and feed her a healthy(ish) diet whilst she’s so young?

Would decide your battles and boundaries. We took the 80, 20 view.

A good diet 80% of the time has kept my daughters (21&23) fit and healthy. 20% covered grandparents, friends, school treats and special days, so didn't feel we had to be constantly saying no.

I had an in law ask if they could feed my 7 month old pringles. She seemed quite surprised that we thought it was a bad idea

Yes that is a good point. I think it’s because it’s been half term this week, we’ve met up with more people than usual so feel like there’s been so many treats offered. She’s not even that keen, she’ll throw most of them on the floor!

As a result of aggressive marketing people see them as treats.

What age is she?

My mum could never understand why I
gave dc plain yoghurt rather than 'childrens'' yoghurt, like they couldn't have something if it wasn't marketed at children. She gave dd1 Milky Bar buttons at three months old though so I never paid any attention to her dietary advice.

Stick with it OP. I got a lot of raised eyebrows and oh poor ds can't have a ribena and a bag of wotsits in his pram.... I now have a 5 year old who eats a varied diet, plenty of fruit and veg, chooses to only drink water or milk, very very occasionally a fruit juice but usually says no thanks and lots of people saying gosh doesn't he eat well, whilst bemoaning their own DC who just won't eat their lunch (having just had a tango ice blast and a bag of haribo). He likes a cake or a biscuit, especially when we bake together, but even then will eat what he is hungry for, he can leave half a biscuit if he doesn't fancy the rest of it unlike his mother . It's worth it.

When I took DD1 (23) for her first MMR, the health visitor offered her a bag of KP Skips afterwards (it was the east end of Glasgow); I declined and said that I would offer her banana when we got home.

My SIL thinks it’s perfectly fine to feed her grandchildren chicken nuggets every day, from McDonald’s. 😼 She eats salad.

Stick to your guns. People are deluded. So much crap is marketed as 'treats' because there's not much profit in things like bananas and baked potatoes. And treats end up as daily food, and the nourishment is zero. Don't forget, you literally are what you eat!

The bit that annoys me if sometimes I'd like to give mine (not a baby btw) a treat or nice pudding etc, but if all the moderation is used up on relatives etc there's not much left for us!

I hate this, the relentless junk food. Everyone thinks they are only giving the child one little thing, not realising that everyone else is also giving them one little thing and it mounts up. It's so hard to say no without looking ungracious and upsetting the child. I don't worry about my DC's weight right now but I do worry about the expectation that there will be junk food every day, everywhere they go.

YANBU

A one year old does not need junk food. Never understood the excitement to want to give some to a child that young.

YANBU I am sick to death of having to defend feeding my children healthy food. Last week we had family over for chippie tea and they asked why I wouldn’t just put some on a plate for my 10 month old and was instead making him scrambled eggs. All the food had salt and vinegar on!

They seem to think it’s because I think I’m so much better everyone else, and want to create thin neurotic children with a superiority complex. I’m actually just trying to keep them an appropriate weight because I feel it’s my responsibility to send them into adulthood with a healthy, well looked after body. If they ended up obese I would feel I had failed them. And given half the population are overweight, it’s a valid concern.

On a side note it’s fucking impossible to buy healthy food for small children in the U.K. when out and about. It’s always a ham sandwich on white bread and crisps.

Yep, wondering why on Earth their kid won’t eat veg having been served up chips, chicken nuggets and ice cream regularly.

Argh tell me about it...i feel i can never "treat" my LO..because i have to prempt the secret treats.

The amount of times someone sits her on their lap for a cuddle, i turn around and they are feeding her their chocolate or biscuits 😭😭

I try not to be OTT..but if its an evening, its not them that then has to fight to brush their teeth after the sugar, or deal with trying to get her to sleep after shes been hyped up on additives ect.

I get so worried that as she gets older she will refuse her fruit/veg dinners because she just want chocs.

I even premake lunches, healthy snacks when seeing nana. So all you have to do is put it infront of her...they will still go out their way to give treats.

It's everywhere. People are just lazy

I wouldn’t give any young child ribena (again). Years ago I gave my DD some and then her mouth was full of ulcers after a couple of days and the only new thing was the ribena. It did say on the label at the time not suitable for under 36 months so I agree with you not giving ribena

We were really strict with my eldest. Fruit only for puddings at nursery, no biscuits or cakes, didn’t have sweets or chocolate until she was nearly 3 (and that was only because in laws did an Easter Egg hunt and we felt it would be cruel to not let her have any when the other children were). She’s now eight and has no recollection of how she wasn’t allowed things that other children were, eats perfectly sensibly, has literally a bucketful of sweets and chocolates in the cupboard which is restocked by Halloween, birthday parties, Christmas, Easter etc, which she eats sensibly. Kids under 4 (without siblings) do not need to eat crap and I hate the argument that you’ll make them binge later in life as at that age they do not see it as a forbidden treat as they don’t know what it is. Once they start going to birthday parties etc and see other kids eating cakes, chocolate etc, that’s when you need to start allowing it.

DD2 ate sweets, chocolate etc at a much younger age due to her elder sister being allowed.

Grandparents tried to give them food they weren’t allowed at every opportunity but with DD1 were put our foot down. I remember them looking after her at age 3.5 and buying her sweets and telling her not to tell her mummy and daddy. How naive as of course the first thing she told us is about the sweets she’d eaten. I was fuming (not so much the sweets but the fact they asked her to lie).

YANBU! I also get annoyed that all children's sized portions are "choose from chicken nuggets, fish fingers", with a side of chips or plain mash with a further side of beans". We just get them an adult portion of something interesting and ask for another plate and set of cutlery.

I don't mind it when they get a treat from grandparents or my brother etc, but they feed them a balanced meal so a treat is good fun.

Yes, I don’t know why people want to encourage the ‘treats’ so young. While she’ll happily eat fruit and veg, and drink water, I’d rather encourage it.

My daughter was a very "good" eater compared to her peers, in terms of the varied food she would eat, being happy to eat fruit and veg etc. And yet I was quite relaxed on the treats front compared to many people (certainly to those on this thread). I happily allowed treats when out with family etc, and we sometimes had them at home. In moderation, sure - I didn't feed her crisps and pop all day every day - I think it's pretty rare for anyone to do that in reality.

A lot of her friends' parents were much much stricter than me about diet, and their kids turned out to be horrendously fussy eaters by comparison.....

I think how fussy or not your kid is must therefore be largely the luck of the draw.

Anyway, overall I would say feed your child what you are comfortable with, allowing a balance of health and enjoyment if you can (if you can achieve both, hurrah!). Moderation is usually the best way. And above all try not to make food a massive focus or a battle ground - that has never seemed to me to produce young people with a healthy attitude towards food....

Good luck OP!

When my son was 5 months old we went to a Christening. At the post-Christening party we were sat at the same table as the grandparents of the child being christened (who I'd never met before). The grandfather tried feeding my 5 month old a chip. I hadn't even started weaning him myself (which he knew but thought it would be funny to try and make him eat chips). Thankfully my son didn't want it but if he had I'd have been so angry that a stranger had not only fed my son junk but potentially could have been the first person to give him solid food. I politely got up and moved to another table after that.

Im struggling to understand reading the responses in this post, that this is the same site that absolutely tore to bits an OP on another thread who didn't want her child to be given cake every single day at nursery!

It’s a total misunderstanding of ‘treating’ as making children love sugar and fat at a young age can lead to lifetime illhealth and problems trying to get healthy later on in life. How is it so hard to understand that a brand new beautiful unspoilt little human has the chance of being from a healthier generation if we can stop the shortsighted jam today approach. Surely it can’t be that hard to treat children non edibly! Eg with a pot of bubbles, play a game, make up silly rhymes. Why is it so food centred?