To be slightly horrified now by what I ate as a kid in the 80s?

[NotWantingToBeRude]

Breakfast was a bowl of either Coco Pops, Frosties or Sugar Puffs. (At least they didn't sell Froot Loops over here I suppose).

Packed lunch in my My Little Pony or Care Bears lunchbox was a sandwich (usually some form of processed meat, occasionally even jam), a pack of crisps, a chocolate bar and a juice box (Ribena or Um Bongo). Never any fruit.

Snack on arriving home from school would be not crisps and chocolate, possibly a Pepperami. Sometimes we’d stop off for pic ‘n’ mix.

Dinner included a full dessert every single night, usually with custard or cream.

Is it just me or would this not be considered so acceptable now?

I didn't eat much fruit as a kid (70s baby) and there was really only ever a few Granny Smiths and a couple of bananas in the house. My granny only had fruit in the house if someone was ill!

But we did have a lot of veg in home made soup, stews etc (along with the odd night of cup a soups and pot noodles for tea!)

My DD has never been keen on fruit but she does eat veg (knowingly and otherwise!) so I didn't stress about it after she became a toddler and the happy eating of fresh mango sticks went out the window!

Disordered eating is quite different to a clinically diagnosed eating disorder.

I used to walk to the shop every morning before school and buy 2 bars of chocolate, then I’d come home and eat them both for breakfast with coffee. Lunch would usually be chips and an iced bun or crisps and more chocolate. I was very thin but probably malnourished. Mum was pretty neglectful of my diet. I’m now obsessed with making sure DS has the best diet!

Yes I ate more veg it was usually fresh not tinned growing up than I did fruit.which was usually tinned and given as a pudding on a Sunday 😀

My children still have lunches like this and breakfasts too.
We don't have dessert every night but when we do it'll be cake and custard.
My children and me are all healthy and ate healthy weights.

I don't understand why you think you'd get a letter home for a jam sandwich, crisps and a chocolate bar??

Nope @NotWantingToBeRude
I was a 70's and 80s child, nothing like that at all. Yes cereal for breakfast but usually weetabix or shreddies. We got a variety pack in the holidays as a treat and fought over the cocopops 😂
Packed lunch in the summer term only, sandwiches with cold meat or cheese, yoghurt fruit and crisps, box of juice. School dinners autumn and winter terms.
Proper meat and veg dinner most nights, occasionally pasta or rice. Friday was treat night so maybe a pot noodle or Findus crispy pancakes!
Pudding on Sunday only.
Very occasionally Chinese takeaway

Primary school teacher here… course it wouldn’t 😂. What parents feed their children ( as long as they get fed) is literally none of my/schools business! We teach not raise kids 🙈

I grew up in the 80s. We weren't that poor, but couldn't afford all that processed stuff. Coco pops for breakfast? I wish, that was costly stuff and was a treat. Sweets every day? Again, no. We had a sweet tin out of which I was allowed something once a week. Pic and mix was an occasional treat.

I don't know where all these kids having carrot sticks and hummus in their lunch boxes are, but I work as a supply TA, have worked in several different schools and most of the kids have crap in their lunch boxes. Crisps, dairy lea dunkers, chocolate bars...what astounds me is how MUCH they have these days. I had one round of sandwiches, a club bar or Jordan's crunch, and an apple.

We didn't die of hunger, we weren't all keeling over with dehydration because we hadn't had a drink for ten minutes and I could manage a few hours in the car without needing a snack.

Well that were the diet choices of your parents. I also grew up in the ‘80’s and we only ate home cooked meals, zero processed food. Veg from our own garden etc.

I think there still are people who eat like your family did when growing up. It’s about lifestyle choices and knowledge and partly money (I say partly as processed and ready made foods are not cheaper than home cooking. It just depends upon what type of ingredients you use for your home cooking. Seasonal veg and cheap cuts of meat are cheaper than processed stuff.

I've seen lots of threads on here where children have bought letters home from school explaining the packed lunch policy (no chocolate bars, cakes for example).

Look at your class photos , how many of the children are visibly overweight? Probably nowhere near the horrifying number of children today who are already finding it hard to bend down and tie their shoelaces. There is a time bomb of diabetes and other obesity related illnesses sitting on their backsides in our classrooms.

Parents might have been not to clued up about nutrition forty years ago, but the food they bought probably wasn’t as contaminated with additional sugars and fats, it is likely they didn’t buy so much takeaway junk and snacks, and their children did a lot more moving about.

Actually a lot of ordinary people ate better than during the war than ever war. I read on an article on this once.

80s food for me: sugar free, salt free, wholemeal, dry, joyless. Damn you Cranks Cookbook.
As an adult I bloody love sugar and have to stop myself hoarding anything sugary, even half an apple will get put in a safe place for it's sugar content.
I know what an ideal diet for my own children looks like, but I also want them to feel normal amongst their friends.

Yep, that was us, but without the Chinese, and Friday night treat was fish and chips.

Yes, the fight over the Coco pops in the multi packs we had as occasional treats was a thing, as was the fight for the cream on the top of the milk.

My kids still have coco pops or chocolate weetabix. They’re teens and the alternative is no breakfast. I can’t force feed them eggs or fruit. Last night we had burgers with a green salad… that was a lot of green in the food waste 🙈

They eat home cooked dinners most nights and cooked veg, lunches are healthy but with a packed of crisps etc. They’re all very slim and healthy. I used to be much stricter about biscuits etc but dd1 was underweight so I chilled out and was just glad when she ate. She’s 17 now, 5’9” and size 6 uk women’s clothes. I could give them veg and hummus in their lunch boxes but healthy food is only actually healthy if you eat it and they just wouldn’t. No idea why because I like it.

I think people are coming at this with ‘I was a healthy weight and active therefore it was ok’.

I was super skinny but it doesn’t mean that eating all that crap was good for me or didn’t have an impact. We just didn’t realise it at the time.

I think it’s just how it was then. And as much as we like to think that everyone is more educated about food now and makes healthier choices, I don’t think that’s actually the norm except on Mumsnet. For example, I was a child of the 80s and my breakfast was Cocopops pretty much every morning from the age of 5 until I was around 14, at which point I decided that cereal was for little kids and made myself toast or grabbed an apple. Looking back, I was pretty shocked that my (strict) parents allowed that and a lot of other questionable food choices, and I could see that it had given me a real addiction to sweet foods. Once I’d stopped eating them, I soon found sweet cereals disgusting and couldn’t eat them any more, so when I had my son I had a bit of a bee in my bonnet about cereal for breakfast - I’m not the sugar police or anything, I just wanted to keep breakfast as a no refined sugar meal. He’s a teen now and to this day, only has cereal as an occasional breakfast, has grown up on porridge, weetabix, eggs, fruit and natural yoghurt etc. However, that doesn’t seem to have been the case for any of his friends - they’ve all had Frosties, Cocopops etc for breakfast ever since they were tiny*. And those cereals still sell by the shedload, so they must still be a very popular breakfast to give children.

*do not want this to come across as me saying I’m better than the parents who are giving cereal. I am definitely not. My son is no stranger to a Pot Noodle or a frozen pizza and I wasn’t as strict with fizzy drinks as lots are these days. I was using cereal as an example of what a lot of mumsnetters think is a food that people don’t give their kids any more, but they do.

Early 80s childhood. We had cereal breakfast (not sugary usually weetabix) small bag of crisps at playtime, lunch a ham or dairylea sandwich, choc biscuit and squash. Tea meat and veg and potatoes, pudding jelly and tinned fruit or rice pudding or fruit and custard. Saturday lunch might be beans on toast, Saturday tea was always meat and salad. Sunday roast dinner and toast for tea. Virtually no snacking, a plain biscuit or cream cracker for supper. Fruit was available tangerines, apples or bananas.
But portions were small. Plates small, children’s plates smaller. Things often cut up and shared. My mum is horrified to see toddlers with a big muffin etc. Sweets weekly not daily. No fancy caloric drinks.
Lots of walking, my local school was a mile each way - a nursery age child on half days would do 4 miles a day as having to walk siblings to school too. No pushchairs or scooter.
I can count on one hand meals out I had as a child inc wimpey or McDonalds (birthday parties). Food very rarely bought out - took picnics. Saturday shopping trips have lunch before go. My grandma buying me a gingerbread man in bakers is memorable. No takeaways.
I can’t recall any fat children in primary, just a couple who were a bit plumper.
My mum is nearly 80 and to be honest eats same way. Weetabix, small sandwich and tangerine, cooked meat and veg evening meal. Only drinks tea. She’s been a healthy weight all her life. I’m always struck by her meals if she’s got back late or been away on holiday. Many would grab convenience food or a takeaway but her go to is crumpets or beans on toast the sort of easy Sunday tea we had as children.

I helped on a brownies evening theatre trip recently. Age 7-9. I was shocked how much crap they had with them (they had already had tea at home) full packed lunches - dairlylea dunkers, cheese strings, big family bags of sweets & crisps. We got them a small pot of vanilla ice cream at interval and lots didn’t eat it, barely registered with them. When I was small going to a show and being bought an ice cream was a big treat.

I’m really not sure we’re in a position to judge. There are kids being given bags of haribo as they come out of school, eating large bars of chocolate as the norm and having McDonald’s / KfC on a regular basis . And that’s with much more education about nutrition. I had a take away probably once or twice a year back in the 80s.

I think the big difference is how much more active kids pre yr2000-ish were.
My mother would have laughed in my face if I’d suggested she drive me to school. We played out, walked or cycled everywhere.
As a child I had a mix of meat/2 veg and the new and exciting UPF foods that became available. But did way more exercise, not that we thought of it as exercise - it was just a means of getting where ever we were going.
Now - I drive my kids to football/swimming/rugby etc and pay for the pleasure!

And those cereals still sell by the shedload, so they must still be a very popular breakfast to give children

It aint just kids
Cocopops is one of my favorite midnight snack foods at 37 lol

Is this some sort of weird stealth boast OP? I suppose your kids eat olives, quinoa, kale and home baked UPF free bread on the daily?

Lots of kids ate like that in the eighties, I know I did much of the time, and many still do. Sadly this sort of diet is more affordable for many families. Try to be less tone deaf.

What impact do you think it had?

I ate coco pops for breakfast my entire childhood - nothing else - similar crap processed food. I was born in 1980. I’m amazed now thinking back - so much sugar - always desserts in school and at home and loads of penny sweets all the time! Surprised I kept my teeth!