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?

I’d be pretty ashamed if my kids ate all the crap in one day, I definitely wouldn’t post about it on Facebook.

I knew a woman who gave her 7 year old crisps and coke for breakfast. She once bought her a bag of assorted crisps for lunch and KFC for dinner.

There is a concern that the rise in bowel cancer among young people, is in part due to poor diet (lots of processed meat and UPF of all types and few vegetables ). This diet exemplifies this sadly.

Yeah bit she is consciously choosing to feed crap. We always hear about how healthy food is more expensive, but some of those foods, like the dunkers, fridge raiders, angel cake and the cookies are just crap for craps sake. And expensive crap at that.

She should have used the money on an apple and peanut butter, a wedge of cheese and instead of single serving fromage frais she could have bought a larger pot and served with seeds.

Porridge with fruit incorporated would have gotten around the choice aspect. Kids don't always need choice. If the fruit is heated into the milk, the choice is made for them. Mine love Pink Porridge. All I do is put some frozen strawberries in (usually bought from the reduced section)

Eta- I was brought up on practically an exclusively upf diet with little to no fruit and veg. I know better so I do better. Its not good enough to set our parents as the bar. Despite my shitty diet, my parents did better than theirs and I aim to do better than mine. I see my own flaws and i hope mine does better than me. It's how we improve life chances for our kids, which are our most prized treasures and deserve that effort.

Fish fingers are hardly the work of the devil.

But have to agree - the lunch is high in processed stuff and sugar.

There is a lot of junk

yabu to say that it’s ok because it’s normal and that many people grew up that way

and traditional working class in the 70/ would not have had the cookies and fromage and anything but a cheese butty for lunch - a picky bits lunch encourages over eating

cakes for the weekend and crips on a Friday night if things were looking up - there is a lot of 70s treats in a single day

the normalising of poor food really doesn’t help this country - we could probably have avoided NI raise if the NHS didn’t have to handle the impact of our poor door choices

If this is who I think it is, she has a huge following on social media. Her 9yo is allegedly really fussy but she also posts her toddlers meals and he eats a pretty normal, healthy diet - lots of fruit and veg and homemade stuff.

Because if you get a large enough following, you can monetise anything.

I always have my kids lots of veg and they enjoyed it. Rarely gave things like nuggets, bland processed cheese, processed stuff. School was good with whole foods too.
Sure we went to McDonald’s on occasion but never understood the frozen nuggets and chips default meal for kids.

It's one day. It shows nothing about the overall diet. Find me an adult who doesn't have a day of occasional junk food. 🤷‍♀️

It’s not a healthy diet, sorry. There’s no arguing that it is. It’s not the worst I’ve heard but it’s definitely not good.
I’m not opposed to giving my DC fish fingers and oven chips occasionally either but it’s occasionally not their normal diet.

Fridge raiders are 🤮. My 13yr old was buying them from the shop, I tried one it was truly disgusting and the furthest possible thing from chicken. I now have cooked normal chicken in the fridge for him to snack on.

YABU. It's a load of junk. How can you see nothing wrong with this diet? The fact that you ate worse when you were a child doesn't prevent you from knowing that it's bad, now that we understand more about diet and nutrition. Why Dairylea Dunkers and Fridge Raiders rather than some actual normal cheese and meat?

We need to stop making excuses for parents who feed their kids this crap diet on a regular basis. Even SN children with sensory needs can eat a lot better than that - I would know, I'm raising two of those. Safe foods are foods they have been exposed to a lot when young, after all. And I don't see evidence of the child being SN in the OP.

What is listed here is the kind of diet that produces fussy eaters who will make fun of others who eat healthily, like a socially-accepted badge of honour among children.

Cooking is not difficult, doesn't need to take up a whole lot of time. It's a basic skill. A lunch doesn't need to be a whole lot of packaged UPF. Making a filling salad takes very little time. Throwing a few baby carrots into a lunch box takes the same amount of time as throwing a pack of fridge raiders in. Lunch boxes now often also come with compartments and cutlery; there is not even the excuse of the practicality of healthy lunches.

On a weekday evening, my children get food that can mostly be ignored on the hob or in the oven until it's done just as easily as any UPF - pasta or rice, some fresh meat or fish, a few vegetables - pre-chopped, frozen, canned are all available options for the spectacularly time-poor. I usually do housework alongside cooking. Hang or fold washing, hoover the place, wash the dishes.

And I am a single mum, working full-time, with all that entails.

I wouldn't comment directly on that mum's feed, no. It's not neglect, but it is shit parenting. And we need to stop excusing that.

Oh come on.... I work in a primary school office. Kids my school are sent in with yesterday's fish and chips, a slice of take at pizza, one child got sent in with a Gregg's sausage roll, a bottle of coke and a cookie for their packed lunch.

They often have takeaways, kebabs and KFC a LOT.

I Was chatting to a 7yo girl just the other day and she was happily telling me how she'd had a chocolate mousse, a pack of quavers and some chocolate spread on toast for breakfast and was looking forward to going to KFC for dinner.

I’m not going to pretend I haven’t had days of giving my kids those foods, but I’m not daft enough to post it online and not expect a roasting!

Tbh I can’t get too riled up about this. The child has fruit for breakfast and lunch, peas for dinner. Lots of protein, even if it was processed. A sandwich is a completely normal thing for a child (and adult!) to eat ffs!! Fish for dinner (breaded fish fingers cooked in the oven are by no means the worst choice you can make for your child).

there’s a bit too much sugar (angel slice, fromage Frais, Maryland cookies) but all pretty small portions. The chips are nutritionally void and unnecessary, and would have been better replaced with rice or potatoes.

I don’t see any crisps, pizza, fizzy drinks, “healthy” kids smoothies (full of sugar, no fibre, not actually healthy at all) in this list.

Better choices could have been made…but this really isn’t the end of the world imo.

It would be so much better if some people were actually doing that. All that kind of crap upf can be recreated with proper ingredients, but that would require know how, time, and effort.

Same here.
I don't think MNers live I t he real world, where, yes...kids are given a bottle of fizz, KitKat chunky and a pack of monster munch for their packed lunch, after having a breakfast of Coco pops, and will head home for a tea that's doner kebab and chips, washed down with Fanta.

They've never seen deprivation or people struggling. We don't have a child obesity crisis because children are fed too many apples.

I know 3 year olds that come to collect their siblings, nursing a bottle of coca cola and clutching a bag of haribo. They then mett their siblings which are handed a mars bar and a bottle of coke. 🤷‍♀️

This is why schools/councils are having to spend their budgets on fruit and veg and extended FSM. Because the ONLY time the kid is given a choice of an apple or peas is at school.

As a children’s social worker, trust me that people feed their kids far, far worse. Or not at all.

Hilariously from what you’ve described, I know exactly who you are talking about.

Her kid is apparently a picky eater. He’s not as he will eat fruit and veg easily.

Shes a packet opener. She feeds her kid utter shit.

Why is it the healthier households are never the “ real world”… why is a bowl of porridge for breakfast not the real world? Why is home made dinners with vegetables not the real world? A full fruit bowl? I really resent this idea that I’m living in some rarified environment of supreme privilege because other people are scraping the barrel. It’s all the real world.

Agreed.

And they don't understand that so e people just don't see what the problem is.

Exampled by OP who can't see that the diet above isn't a good one. And that example is actually the "better" end of a poor diet. At least there's SOME vegetables and cheese etc

Some parents have absolutely no understanding of why it's problem to feed their kids takeaway kebabs on Friday night, then order a dominoes in on Saturday and take them to the local fast food for Sunday lunchtime. And around those meals feed them sugary cereals and turkey dinosaurs "because it's kids food" and "well, that's what kids eat" or "they won't touch a vegetable so I don't bother" or "well there's fruit in the frube and the frosties have got vitamins in, it says it in the packet".

I may as well not bother sending out the emails about healthy food to parents. It's gets ignored or responses back going "kids don't like vegetables so why are you sending this?"