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!

What you have posted does not describe the typical British diet. I was brought up on home cooked freshly made food with plenty of vegetables, meats and fish. I feed my DD in the same way. My DD is only a toddler at the minute so school lunches are not a consideration for me as yet. However, if I felt that the options provided by school were not healthy, I would send her in with packed lunches that I have prepared. Suggesting you cannot do this because of your childs friends "peer pressure" is ludicrous.

I think this speaks of the area/social demographic you are living in. Most children I know only have milk and water at home and eat pretty well. Our school food is absolutely delicious and healthy. Puddings at school often have hidden veg in (courgette and lemon cake etc)

Please tell me this is sarcasm before i explode 🤣

The problem begins with a general lack of knowledge about healthy food & the nutrients required for body building & health. Children from early years onwards should be taught about the various food groups & where the food comes from. There is no point in offering children healthy food if they have no idea why it is important to include this in a balanced diet. Convenience food definitely has a place as do treats which should never be banned. It's all about moderation & making sure children get enough fresh air and exercise as well as healthy food. We shouldn't forget the importance of drinking water & regular brushing of teeth.

Yes these things are ok as long as you feed them with home-grown quinoa watered with the tears of nun the rest of the week.

Was that addressed to the original poster or everyone in general? Because I always put out the vegetables FIRST before the rest of the food is ready - usually a big plate of cut up raw bell peppers, cucumbers etc and it all gets eaten because they are hungry (there is usually veg in the main meal too, but tis ensures vegetables are always eaten).

There are worse things than pizza. I also make a sort of no-knead focaccia/pizza dough out of 50/50 white and brown flour and leave it in the refrigerator till I need it (anytime between 12 hours and 48 hours) you just knock it back and then add the toppings you want - either tomatoe sauce and mozarella if you want "pizza" or cut up vegetables if you want to make it look like a fancy pinterest worthy foccacia (look it up, its a whole thing). It sounds time consuming but its genuinely only 15 minutes to prepare the dough in advance and it can be done last thing at night when the children are asleep. And its either very quick to put the toppings on or very slow if you are doing it with children and making pretty pictures. But its bread, oil and lots of roast vegetables maybe with a small amount of cheese. Children need all those things. And again, they seem to really enjoy vegetables in that format.

But I also do fishfingers and serve baked beans on toast so what do I know...

Yes

Huge over generalisation.
The other day, after swimming I overheard a mum asking her daughter (around 18 months) what she’d like for lunch - “curry and dip dip? She suggested, then pizza, then burger, then she said crisp sandwich and the daughter agreed. I must say I was disheartened to hear the conversation but thought - each to their own. We all went home to eat a fresh salad full of grains etc. I’m not saying that to show off but it just shows two different families - like anything there is a huge variation!

Edit - we also eat a wide the foods she suggested but like we all know it’s about balance.

(But even shop bought pizza if they eat a large plate of raw vegetables beforehand, and don't eat it every day isn't the worst thing - it contains grains, vegetables, proteins. Too much sugar for every meal but that balances out if they are eating other things)

I don't have kids but spending time on Mumsnet gives me the impression that many parents do separate meals for their kids and is usually 'pasta and sauce' or nuggets. Which for me is bizarre and doesn't surprises me that they grow into 'fussy' eaters. Another thing is soup...we used to eat soup at every meal and doesn't seem a normal thing in the UK neither

Then people get offended if this is pointed out and start mentioning their autistic kids (as if they were the majority rather than the minority 🙄).
Plus my dad used to cook everyday and he only arrived from work after 1830. If you have kids you have to put effort....tired or not.

Yes!!!

You're right. While holidaying on The Continent I also observed this. They all ate raw vegetables and filtered water. Perhaps a slice of apple at the weekend. They also know how to converse, have high reading ages and only have 2 minutes of screen time a month. Quite the contrast.

I agree. However as long as these form part of a balanced diet I don't worry too much about it. I was surprised and disappointed when my ds started reception at the lunches offered. Thankfully over time he has made healthier choices after getting a bit bored of the more junky types of food (today he chose chicken tikka curry and rice). I work full time so sometimes I just have to do something a bit more 'processed' to maintain my sanity. I would prefer to do everything from scratch if I could. I try to make snacks and freeze them to save me relying on packets.

You do you I guess, but yes it is hard when they want what their friends have.

I agree, OP.

I'm British and we very rarely eat crap. Most stuff is minimally processed ingredients. I cook properly food from scratch most days or reheated leftovers. I'm a single parent working long hours so that's not an excuse either. I wasn't taught to cook before leaving home either, I learnt as an adult by teaching myself. So that's not an excuse. And I'm a child of the 70s/80s so grew up eating absolute crap - Bernard Matthew's turkey drummers and Findus crispy pancakes etc. So that's no excuse either.

So much concern over obesity in childhood and, yet, whenever anyone starts a thread questioning children's diets, so many people make excuses and become defensive.

I'm a teacher. Last week, I sat with the children for lunch on the last day. Some parents clearly feed their children well but some of the children just bring in absolute crap to eat (one kid brought in a whole box of chocolate fingers a bag of doritos and a packet of skittles for his lunch and nothing else). And I don't work in an affluent area with educated parents either. Some people care and some people don't.

Oh, and baked beans are not healthy.

I grew up in Scotland. Which has a reputation for crap food.

We ate things like wholemeal bread, lentil soup and beef stew.

Every meal involved vegetable soup of some description (too cold for salad!).

I went to be an au pair in France and was horrified to be told that the kids drank chocolate milk for breakfast and their after school snack was stale white bread with Nutella.

I’m sorry OP, please do feel free to worry as much as you like about your kids’ diet, that is your prerogative, but don’t make this about nationality, you come across as rude.

I mean an obvious wind up post but well done OP on pulling bloody Malta out the bag for extra outrage. Didn't take long for the Google search results to roll in for maximum impact🤌 shame all the other talking points on Brits v continentals are a little pedestrian!

Well done him, he sounds like an excellent father figure. Did he do all of the housework too?

I love French breakfasts, all those fatty, sugary croissants and pain au chocolat, hot chocolate, very milky coffee and plenty of Nutella!

Lol I made the mistake of going to France with autistic DC. Didn’t understand the STARES when they had a meltdown.

Then I researched and read about how extremely backwards attitudes are to autism and disabled children- think kids still being locked in instructions etc. 😳 now that IS something I judge and judge harshly. Always roll my eyes a bit when I see all the posts about how amazing French children are.

She's from Malta she says.
A country known to have an obesity problem.
40% of children overweight or obese and 65% of adults overweight or obese (Source: Eurostat)

What do children in Malta have for school dinners?

This has little to do with the UK diet and more to do with kids being kids.
They'll always want to push boundaries and say their friends are getting better stuff/staying up later/allowed to play xbox all day.

I'm not disagreeing that school meals are rubbish. But you're being unreasonable to expect the school to base their menu on what makes your parenting easier. They need to provide a certain amount of calories on a strict budget, and that budget doesn't stretch to multiple professional chefs providing healthy nutritious meals.

Kids learning no isn't an easy lesson, but it's necessary. Don't blame the UK for that.

The diet in the U.K. is atrocious, you only have to see the many obese children walking around. I would give them a packed lunch with fruit veggies and protein.

They may stock them in tourist areas perhaps?

. Locals do not buy them.

School lunches are nothing like what we serve in the uk. Which are cheap and shameful as a treacher it used to beeak my heart knowing that some of those on free meals it could be their only food all day. It was masked as healthy because we didn't provide salt to add to the chips!
Here
Always a salad to start

Healthy main. Fish or meat with veg or rice or a veggie option such as stuffed tomato or pepper

Pud. Yogurt or fruit