To think letting kids eat McDonald’s weekly is borderline neglect?

[BeAlertBeaker]

It’s not “a treat” if it’s regular.

Then they hang out all the time in and around them after school and during the holidays. Get a life you sad teens.

Yes. I have a very skewed view of what is normal. A lot of us bring in clothes that our own DC have grown out of too.

I actually find these type of threads hilarious and worrying at the same time. Does the OP seriously think a weekly Mc Donald's is neglect?
I agree with @Quiethouse that being obsessed with good and bad foods isn't a good way to parent. We've had a few weeks of family parties and events so the weekend eating hasn't been great with lots of sweet tables and party bags and buffet food but you just counter balance it during the week plus the weather has been great so the DC are constantly outside and active.

So, a child who eats fresh berries with yogurt every morning, a chicken/tuna/whatever salad every lunch then a fresh home cooked, healthy tea each night and only fruit or veg as a snack but on a Saturday afternoon has a happy meal is being neglected?!

My DD9 has a happy meal every week after her swimming lesson, mainly because it’s at 6.15 and I can’t feed her before it (so many kids puke in the pool when they’ve been fed) and afterwards she’s starving and it’s late. It’s once a week, she eats a healthy diet the rest of the time. So no, I don’t think she’s being neglected actually - one meal out of the whole week is ok to make life a bit easier for a burnt out mum!

No it’s not. My children do sport around the county all weekend. They run for hours in all weathers.
We eat one 2-3 Saturdays per month when we’re out supporting their hobbies. A post game crudités and hummus would be abusive😆

McDonald’s isn’t just about what’s on the plate - it’s a whole experience designed to create lifelong customers. That’s what makes it more concerning when it becomes a regular fixture for kids

It isn't neglect. However, this is this bit I definitely agree with. Establishing shitty habits and ideas of what good or normal eating is. A burger and chips, ok, it's fried potato, meat and a bun. Not great, salty, fatty, sugary. However, in itself it doesn't have the same associations, advertising and habit forming that McDonald's weekly does. I feel it's buying into something very culturally quick and easy and doesn't do children any favours to form that associated between name branded, low quality product that isn't healthy and 'treat'. It's lazy. It's bigger than bad food, it's teaching children lazy thinking and a lazy reward system if it's weekly.

Don't be ridiculous.

One junk meal a week will not harm anyone. Children need to eat junk to learn to regulate eating junk properly as it's everywhere. I personally believe there is no such thing as bad food. Only foods that we need in different amounts. Children need to learn moderation.

As a kid, I had healthy homemade meals every day except Friday. My parents used to leave me with a baby sitter, and I'd have a small Chicago pizza, beans, and some chips. It was fine.

When my 10mo is older, I fully intend to make Friday night treat night as well. That may well sometimes include maccies.

And sorry but the maccies hate reeks of classism. No one would make a thread about a parent taking a kid to a more upmarket restaurant every week and that kid ordering a beef burger and fries there.

I'm interested in what specifically your long term concern is, with one meal out of 21 being McDonald's? Because from what I have read, eating fast food once a week within an otherwise nutritionally balanced diet, doesn't pose significant health risks.

This is the problem with parents with the attitude like the OP they do so SO much harm and damage. And they don't even realise it at the time. The kids from school and neighbourhood who had health-obsessed and restrictive parents were stealing kids lunch money for sweets, and absolutely fucking gorging and bingeing their faces on sweets, biscuits and whatever they could when they visited our house. Late teens they were buying nothing but junk food.

The kids who had regular access to sweets or McDonalds were happy to have the salads and other food in moderation.

I've heard this from others too, time and time and time and time and time again. Restricting children does enormous damage and harm. And almost always causes eating disorders.

I don’t think OP does. I think this is a ‘wind them up and watch them go thread’. The pompous faux intellectual seriousness of OP’s tone gives her away.

Wow. Both my kids have a McDonald’s after school on a Friday as a treat. A chicken nugget happy meal each. Both are autistic and are extremely picky with food but they love a happy meal. Call social services.

Don’t be silly. Do you actually know what child neglect really is? Educate yourself.

I actually agree with a lot of what you’ve said here. The reasons why people rely on processed food are complex and often rooted in time, money, and sheer survival mode. I’m not judging individual families doing the best they can with limited resources and I understand how exhausting and overwhelming it can be.

My post wasn’t about moralising or saying everyone should be batch cooking organic veg. It was about how culturally we’ve reached a point where weekly fast food for kids is so normal that even questioning it gets labelled as snobbery or insensitivity - which makes it hard to have any real conversation about nutrition, habits, and long-term impact.

And for the record, I don’t think fish and chips after a pony ride is automatically healthier or more justifiable. I was just responding to how that example was presented as a cherished, occasional treat. My concern is when this kind of food becomes the routine, not the rare memory.

Hunger and poverty are absolutely bigger crises and I’m not suggesting otherwise. But I also don’t think we have to choose between caring about food insecurity and asking questions about what we’re teaching kids to crave and expect. Both matter.

To think letting kids eat McDonald’s weekly is borderline neglect?

Well, DSD gets McDonalds once a week (in between her dance class and horse riding lesson on a Saturday lunchtime when we have less than hour to get across town!). I know, disgraceful!!!! Why don't I make her a healthy packed lunch of carrots and celery sticks to eat en route?! 🙄

She lives between two lovely house, with very attentive, caring and loving parents (and step-parents), healthy, homecooked meals all week at whichever house she is at, lots of exercise and outdoor activities. She is happy, healthy, slim and active.

So I'm going to say no, she is not neglected. Borderline or otherwise.

Being too restrictive of foods and making some foods good and bad can also lead to binge eating disorder later.

Any food is deadly in sufficient quantities. Without knowing the diet and lifestyle of the children concerned it's not possible to tell whether it's wrong for them to have fast food once a week. It depends on what they're doing the rest of the time, what they eat, how active they are and what kind of medical treatment they're getting. Lots of "healthy" food isn't all that healthy, anything vegan for instance is usually bad for you and something stupid like cress could kill you if that's all you ate or you ate a lot of it.

One of the most emotionally neglected people I knew by her parents growing up was fed nothing but healthy home cooked meals.

I think it's disgusting seeing little kids regularly consume fast food and processed freezer food. Doomed to a life of poor dietary choices, and we all know the consequences by now.
I'm sure I'll be piled on, but honestly it's our responsibility as parents to feed them a healthy, balanced diet and regular fast food should not feature.

My old excellent GP was Indian and very wise .He told me there is no such thing as bad food.Bit extreme ,but a Mc Donalds each week is a little treat surely ? Unless there is a rare group of children who like Salad and veggies ! The dreadful cases reporting actual abuse,and children being left hungry and cold, are upsetting to read but still so little is done sadly.

I can almost smell the smoke from the high speed back peddling from the op claiming she was only after a reasonable discussion

@DoddlesMcDoddle I agree. Mine are adults now, healthy and eat well. We used to let them have fast food like McD and Dominos not every week, but now and again. Also sweets and biscuits at home. In moderation. They had friends who would come around and try to binge on biscuits because they were never allowed them at home.
Just teach your children to understand what is preferable, nutritious and what is not, but that on occasion, fast food is fine.

Feeding your children 'junk' food one meal out of twenty one, is so far from the definition of neglect that I can't even take this thread seriously.

I'm sure the children that are sexually and physically abused daily, ignored, starved, isolated, cold or dirty, would happily swap their situations to be fed one portion of mcdonalds a week.

Get real.

It's a little lazy at a push, but it depends what they eat the rest of the week.
It's absolutely not neglect, have a little look into what life for a neglected child actually looks like. Being fed a meal is certainly not neglectful.

Neglect having chicken nuggets and chips once a week

wow

you are so lucky don’t know the true meaning of neglect in kids

no food - clean clothes - being abused - being ignored - emotional mental physical abuse to name a few

mini blondes 8 prob has one every 2weeks or so.

Sometimes god forbid once a week on a Friday after school on the way to her private gym lessons that I pay a lot for

total neglectful mummy here then. Holds hands up