To think beige kids dinners are fine?

[reachermarry]

Scrolling FB today and seen a video come up from a mum of 2 and what she gave her kids for good during the day.

cereal for breakfast with option of fruit/veg

picky bits for lunch, on this occasion included a sandwich, Dairylea dunkers, a pack of fridge raiders, banana, an angel cake slice.

for dinner the child had, fish fingers, chips, peas.

for pudding was given a fromage frais and a mini Maryland bag of cookies.

Now I am not sure how old the child was as there was no mention, but the comments were horrendous, comments were saying how she should be done for neglect because of the ultra processed food she’s feeding her kid.

What’s your views on it?

I’ll start, I see nothing wrong with this diet, maybe breakfast could be a little more filling, perhaps an option of something else on the side, but that’s just my child, I know some kids don’t like big brekkies.

I can’t be the only one especially growing up in the lower/working class families, that had a diet consisting of quick save chips, and pizza/sausages surely?

Thank you. My dd has anorexia. Well it’s more likely ARFID, which tipped over into anorexic behaviours. Not diagnosed as she falls through the cracks. Extreme anxiety prevented her from engaging with services, which translated into failure to engage and her being discharged.

Dd all but stopped eating and becoming very ill. I managed to keep her out of hospital as that would probably have been a one way ticket to death for her - co morbid medical condition. That’s not just me saying this btw. We have a private eating disorder coach on board, who said she wouldn’t have done well and she would have stayed in hospital a long time even if we’d have managed to get her out. She has a seizure condition, where her heart stops beating, physical but can be triggered from emotions. Medical settings are the no1 trigger. She likely has autism and PDA. Again, not my opinion only. The psychiatrist, who signed her off from ED services also said there were indications.

I managed to expand her eating repertoire over the years from baby to toddler then young child and beyond. Then a few incidents occurred and she severely regressed.

Weaning was initially a doddle until it wasn’t and lots of the eating behaviours described by @luna25 just above this post are familiar and the way that I dealt with it, expanding things slowly… until dd ate a large range of foods. This has all been wiped out and the range of foods she would eat at its worst some days last year was nil by mouth. When I said to dd that she was eating less than a one year old baby, she said that babies are different. She genuinely didn’t believe she needed to live to eat and still now eats to plan under duress.

There is a lot of ignorance for what it can be like for some people. Those, who have ARFID and will eat a beige diet are actually the lucky ones. There are more rare incidents of kids, who have to be nose fed because their safe foods are things like salad and their nutritional needs cannot be met orally. This doesn’t make this eating disorder a fad for where were these kids in the past? They would have died. Failure to thrive used to be a thing.

In the world of anorexia, all food is food. I really do not get the outrage at what this child is eating, especially with the update just above mine. The mother is not poisoning her child.

@Dideon I am surprised at your posts considering you work with autistic kids. And I repeat the mantra of eating disorder professionals. “All food is food”. Of course that doesn’t mean all diets are optimal. And it doesn’t mean thinking and behaviours shouldn’t be gently challenged or that parents feeding their kids takeaway in the evening and Coke with crisps and chocolate for lunch when those kids would eat foods like fish pie and lentils is ok.

You're taking the "all food is food" a bit out of context here. The aim of that quote is about the fact that some foods are completely demonised when you have an eating disorder, especially anorexia - it aims to stop people being afraid of a bite of chocolate, the yolk of an egg, the nuts containing a high percentage of fat. It's a very simplified sentence that aims to get people to eat something, anything, especially to get calories into their bodies.

It is not the same as saying nutritional values are equal, or that some foods are not harmful if eaten in large quantities.

These threads tend to get taken over by folk whose children live on the extreme ends of the food spectrum, but that is not what we are talking about here.

We are talking about children being fed large quantities of UPFs that we know are linked to higher rates of obesity, cancers, tooth decay and many other harmful effects in the long run. We are talking about a mother who proudly posts this kind of diet online, thinking she is doing well, while in actual effect many of those foods, while filling, have little nutritional value. We are talking about this, somehow, being seen as normal, when it is anything but.

Yes, for some children, anything is better than nothing, but for the vast majority, this kind of diet is simply not good enough.

These threads indeed do get taken over by people on the extreme. That diet is shit for the vast majority of children on a daily basis, and should not be normalised in a country with a high obesity rate.

Yes I agree, I think that everyone has been quick to say that kids with SEN/ other medical conditions are the exception and should, of course, be fed whatever they need, but the premise of the original post was that this diet was fine for all kids. Which 100% it is not.

faeritales are you receiving any treatment for your condition ?

@Dideon I’m in therapy as my autism was undiagnosed for over thirty five years which has caused a lot of issues for me in terms of both my work and my personal life.

In terms of the food issues specifically, there isn’t really any help available. I’m a healthy weight and none of my bloods show any deficiencies so nobody is particularly interested.

A lot of my food issues are down to texture intolerance and I also find most restaurant environments very overwhelming in terms of noise, smells and expectations - which is why I generally eat much better at home where I have full control.

And then we end up with fat kids who grow up and become fat adults and die a painful, untimely death from a lifetime of poor health. Do you really think it’s ok to set your kids up like that? I don’t.
And since you’ve brought class into it - working class kids are at a disadvantage from birth. No need to add any more, you should be trying to give them the gift of good nutrition and health.

Why bother trying, minimal effort is good enough!

Who would want to use abuse or severe child neglect as a barometer for how good their own parenting is?
How shit do you need to be to think ‘well I’m not starving then for 3 days while I’m on a bender so I guess this is good enough!’.

@faerietales thanks for your reply. I have had OCD for 21 years which thankfully I am now able to manage. I found some of the practices of CBT quite helpful. My avoidance techniques were second to none ! For a few years my life was very limited and I didn’t function very well at all. I feel sad for this time lost but completely recognise that I was very mentally unwell. I Co-run a support group for people with OCD and this along with my medication (Ssri’s) and my own adapted CBT keep me well.
I wish you all the very best.

I wouldn’t like this diet for my child. It’s almost entirely processed crap. There are very few, if any, fresh ingredients. The salt and sugar content in their day is horrendous.

Thanks @Dideon- I certainly manage a lot better than I did in the past, mostly because I know my limits and preferences much better now and can easily explain to people why I can’t do X or Y, and suggest an alternative. In the past I was more worried about being judged so just said no to everything, lol.

Yes, when I accepted my OCD and started to be kinder to myself the OCD lost some of its power. Instead of wanting to get better I learned to manage my illness and in turn got a lot better . I’m glad your in a better place.

@Dideon - likewise!

If a family meets the very high threshold for social worker involvement, the issues are likely to be far more serious than feeding their kids chicken nuggets. There are lower levels of family support intervention which might support healthy eating but even the thresholds for these are high and they have to be engaged with voluntarily by families.

In my class I have a high needs, non-verbal autistic child who literally eats cereal or McDonalds. Mum has been to the GP but as the child is not underweight Mum has been told no intervention is necessary.

@NewNameBridget

how could it be exemplary? Like I mean how else could it be better, where do you think there is room for improvement? Genuinely curious!

sofiewoo

That wasnt what I meant. It’s not an optimum diet but it’s not bad either. Parent can do a lot more damage to kids by being too strict and obsessive about food. It’s actually increasingly common. I have had cases where one child became dangerously anorexic and the root was the mother had stated sugar was addictive like cocaine and it caused a severe fear in him and he would obsess over food labels etc. also had a family who were fruitarians and the children were all medically malnourished. The point I was making is that even nutritionists canr agree on what is ‘healthy’ - gluten-free, veggie, carnivore, vegan, keto, halal etc. as long as the child is a healthy weight, growing and running about they are fine! We know that the ‘clean the plate’ club often causes issues with weight later on down the line, and forcing veggies/fruits and demonising ‘junk’ only makes the kids want that more. Not labelling any food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is encouraged. Ever seen kids at a birthday party? The ones who get to make their own choices intrinsically are tucking into the fruit because it wasn’t heralded as ‘good for you’. It’s just food! Like cake, like cheese.

we had a family we worked for for years for other reasons - the young lad had sensory issues and literally lived off white bread and Jam sandwiches. We got regular bloods done and never a worry. God know how. Strong as an ox at 18! An adult man who still only eats Jam sandwiches and looks like a triathlete. I wouldn’t believe it unless I saw it myself.

so my point is that it’s not that I deal with abused children so this is low on my priority list for a family - what I am saying is I actually think it’s way way better to chill out about food, not make meals a battle ground as you are acting causing way more harm than good, and have a big picture approach. Think about what they eat over a whole month not that day. Some days it may have been beige - then 2 weeks later they want to eat 5 bananas! Let them. Kids know what their bodies need. If they are getting tired and weak and are shown to have deficiencies there are ways round thst to still let them eat what they like without harm. And then most important thing of all is the children mental well wing and relationship with the trusted parent. Thst can be easily buggered by unnecessary food battles.

Shocking typos - on phone and have fat fingers. But I hope you get the drift!
i come across so many deeply loving dedicated parents who’ve drunk the kool aid (pardon the pun) on ‘healthy’ diets and become utterly obsessed about it and it really does do a number on poor mum, the child and their relationship. Those are the kids that end up gorging on Maccas and pies the moment they go to uni!! lol. The amount of times I’ve just said to fraught crunchy mums the absolute best thing you can do for you and your child right now is relax and eat some nachos togrther!!! It’s just food. The handwringing just makes me so sad.

It's a terrible diet. The 'we ate this in the 80s and are fine' argument is nonsense. Look at the rise in bowel cancer, look at the rise in obesity and all it's associated problems. It's is not ok and can cause a lifetime of issues.

…. and the reality is most people didn’t eat like that in the eighties!

With all the information out there about the risks to health due to UPF - I do think it’s irresponsible to feed young children so much of it in one day, presumably every day. Sorry.

Know better, do better.

90% of humans have a sweet tooth, its totally normal to enjoy chocolate! That’s not because your mum limited it!

No of course, having a sweet tooth is normal! And I still to this day enjoy a hazelnut Tony’s chocoloney bar.

however, in my case and 2 of my siblings, it wasn’t just a sweet tooth, once we opened the world to chocolate/sweets, fizzy drinks, anything with any kind of sugar in, the door didn’t close, and in my case, I was going to work for the first few years of my life and buying tonnes of the food I wasn’t ever aloud as a child, takeaways, chocolate, pop, sweets, crisps = developed an unhealthy relationship with it and struggled with binge eating for quite a while.

needless to say, when I had my DD I never limited those items, of course wasn’t aloud an aero bar for breakfast, snicker for lunch and twix for dinner, but if she came to me after eating dinner and asked for one, she’d get. As long as teeth are brush morning and night I do not care for restricting it.

With all due respect I think your approach is wrong. It’s not healthy for your child’s heart, weight or teeth to have chocolate bars after dinner everyday. A small biscuit when she gets home from school is one thing, but pudding should be yoghurt or fruit in my opinion.

You giving her chocolate whenever she likes is going to still create issues. A healthy diet with the odd snack is the way to go. I think you’re taking your perceived experience and doing the opposite which can be just as harmful.

”I’m overweight because my mum never limited my chocolate and sweets. I wasn’t encouraged to eat healthily so I didn’t”. That’ll be her take in a few decades, especially if she comes from a family of blame.

cereal for breakfast with option of fruit/veg
picky bits for lunch, on this occasion included a sandwich, Dairylea dunkers, a pack of fridge raiders, banana, an angel cake slice.
for dinner the child had, fish fingers, chips, peas.
for pudding was given a fromage frais and a mini Maryland bag of cookies

This would be a very, very bad and rare day for us. Although I am not perfect all of the time so we do have 'some' of this stuff more often than we should. My 12yo has Fridge Raiders in his lunchbox everyday - and I know they ultra processed crap but he likes them and I try to keep the rest of the lunch healthy.

I have one child who is on a strict medical diet and simply couldn't eat like this at all - especially not the sweet stuff - but the other kids are a work in progress.