British kids and eating habits - IABU ?

[lovemycoffee2]

I have two young kids and we live in the UK but we are not originally from here.

At home we cook everyday from scratch our food and we take that food at a lunch box at our workplace. We have a light dinner again made from scratch.

The issue is our kids which are of course going to school/nursery and they love to copy their friends!

In the UK it's healthy if a kid eats sausages (god knows what the meat has inside), or for example Heinz baked beans which have 10% sugar and 20% salt (leaving 70% being actual beans) or if they eat fish fingers which are pre-fried (even if you bake them they were already fried before got frozen) or chicken nuggets (again pre-fried which god knows what was the oil quality).

It's also acceptable to drink juices which have no sugar but plenty sweeteners.

Also, it's perfectly fine to have a ham sandwich for lunch which has ready made processed bread full of emulsifiers and ham which (like sausage) god knows what ingredients has.

It's ok that primary schools offer desserts, even if they are small portions and low sugar on a daily basis - not on a weekly or as special occasion! I don't have a dessert everyday, why my kid is offered one?

Honestly, are all these things ok? Am I paranoid?

I am very worried that the kids will either end up obsessed. with diabetes or with other health issues given all the processed food and the fact that we are what we eat.

YABU - are you crazy?

YANBU - unfortunately this is a "balanced healthy diet" in the UK!

Oh god me too. Nobody seems.to allowed to pass peacefully anymore. When I get to that age, if I have capacity I will have a DNAR and no life lengthening treatments x

Maccy D's may call it a Royale with Cheese in Paris...but it's still a fast food cheeseburger and a goujon is a European cousin of the fish finger.
It's a good job you didn't live here in the 1970s, Toast Toppers and Findus crispy pancakes were often served.

As you can tell from the label this tin wasn't made for the British market - British Heinz ingredients are different

I don't like baked beans, they are horrible. But they are not a bad option for a quick meal like beans on toast or a not-quick but simple meal like beans and a jacket potato.

I did grow up with fish fingers and chips but I do like salad and I eat a LOT of it (not your MN version of salad). So kids might have a beige diet but most grow out of it. Even my son will eat salad now.

In Italy it's easier, after all they can live on pasta/pizza and ice cream

I loved all these 😁

Been there, @AtomicBlondeRose . Mine went through a bit of a phase with bad food and I honestly didn't know where we'd gone wrong. A few years later it was all fine. Now they're adults who eat well. It'll be ok!

lol

I mean 4 year olds don’t have much understanding of why things happen the way they do. Surely it’s just a matter if time before they make a fuss about something.

If this is important to you then give them a packed lunch with the foods you approve of. If it isn’t then don’t bother 🤷‍♀️

@BellesAndGraces no, I'm just not a complete health loon.

This.

@Safaribar The local Primary school here is 1/2 mile from our estate. The majority of the children are driven to school in spite of there being pavements all the way and no main roads to cross.

I passed the local swing park earlier. There were no children in it. It's a dry, bright, sunny afternoon.

I can only assume they're all sat inside playing on screens.

Well that’s your job as a parent as you’re always going to have people who do different things to what you agree with when parenting. If you feel so strongly the obvious answer is packed lunch and you tell them that they have to eat what you provide. You’re not going to change the British cuisine so that’s your only choice surely, what else can you do?

Ok I had to stop reading here 🤣 I am sure other people have already commented on the irony of this.

I lived in Malta, Malta has a lot of unhealthy food habits!! Quite similar to the UK I would expect.

What does a healthy weekly menu look like to you at home please, i actually need help with this .. kids have just had pizza and now I've seen this post i am consumed with guilt.
Dad works shifts so hard to cook with a toddler and a five year old wanting to just play out.

I read a book recently about menopause and exercise and it said that you don't need to worry about the sugar in fruit (or sweeter vegetables) because of the fibre.

So I have now decreed that fruit has no calories and no sugar

In all seriousness I also agree there are issues with the food culture in the UK. A lot of it is due to the issues you outlined and its not evenly spread. There is a theory that the speed of industrialisation in the UK killed of a lot of native food culture and the connection between the land and the food you eat. That combined with the massive push to make mass produced food available in the 50s onwards had a negative effect on people's eating habits. Also, when healthy eating did become a thing, it came from the top down so there was a certain disdain for "traditional" foods like stews, or they just weren't heard of anymore - groats etc are just as healthy as quinoa and traditionally much much cheaper.

Plus small children the world over are conservative in their tastes - they tend to like the same five meals rotated. So parents getting in a flap and thinking "healthy" eating = "sophisticated" and changing up the child's meals dramatically (see comment about disdain for normal foods) can make it worse - adults grow up associating healthy eating with being forced to eat "weird" (to a child) foods.

But the OPs comment on how shocking British nursery food is, is misplaced. It is worse in Malta (I know people with kids there). Possibly if she was still there, she would have had the same shock between her own food and the nursery's. And she is targeting the wrong thing - there is nothing wrong with baked beans as a small part of a balanced diet (see comment about disdain) and the "home cooked" puddings served by the nursery/school are usually deliberately low in sugar.

Also - there is a bit of "I am shocked that they can't make healthy food children will eat" combined with "my children won't eat my food, it must be the schools fault."

*Kids menu's on the continent are also significantly better - there are no chicken nuggets and pizza's; kids eat what adults eat, just smaller portions!

We also don't have a problem with children and tantrums. Somehow european kids palates are well developed and they simply don't want unhealthy stuff.*

You do realise lots of us travel regularly to the continent? France is full of boulangeries selling sugar laden cream cakes. Germans eat tons of sausages washed down with beer and plenty of bread, cakes and pastries.Spanish food includes plenty of chorizo and salty serrano, lashings of olive oil, cheeses etc.

Ive seen many a European child throw a tantrum. However I've also seen lots of tantrums avoided by parents in europe tolerating behaviour i wouldnt. Guess what - i don't assume all European parents are the same based on the limited sample I've seen and you shouldn't either.

Schools get a budget of about 1p and are then expected to feed children.
I can't imagine for a minute that the people in school kitchen believe they are serving up a healthy meal.

That's both your school and your child's choices, last week for us also reception was
Mon Squash and lentil lasagne with salad
Tues fish curry with rice green beans and baby corn
Weds ratatouille pasta with or without chicken and with salad
Thurs cous cous with veg chickpeas and salmon
Friday yes fish fingers, oven baked with peas but in the grand scheme of things I don't think terrible.
DS could've chosen other options that are more processed such as sausages but those are the choices he made because they are more similar to food at home.
We also cook from scratch every night and DH and I often take left overs or at the moment salads for work lunches.

This is peak Mumsnet. Has anyone mentioned giving bullion as a snack yet?

There are swathes of people past 80 who are living happy and healthy lives.
I want to be in their gang!

Have you met my french nieces and nephews ?! So much sugar .. Le snack is always sweet . One of them is a seriously fussy eater . And no tantrums give me a break, they’re just kids, of course they have tantrums !
I don't think you can generalise ..

Goady sort of opening post. You could have asked for advice on counteracting the influence of unhealthy school dinners, without assuming all UK parents feed their children a never-ending conveyor belt of chicken nuggets and sweets.

Of course some people feed their kids less than optimal foods. Most do it sometimes, I suspect even you do sometimes.

I have to point out that you have grossly misunderstood labelling on food - baked beans have 10% of the recommended daily allowance of sugar and 20% of the recommended daily allowance of salt - NOT are 10% sugar and 20% salt.