How usual is it to have Dominos once a week?

[12purplepencils]

Aibu to think this isn't very healthy for a child/teenager? A medium pizza to themselves every single week without fail.

Or am I being judgy? Is this quite common and not a big deal?

I won't give my opinion unless asked but I don't think it's a great message to give to a young person that this is a good routine to carry on, surely would be better to have it fortnightly at least or a smaller pizza 🤔

It’s better than a vegan fish and chips!

If he's worried about his weight, it still doesn't have to be all or nothing. A dominoes pizza is what £20 and 2000 calories? A fancy supermarket sour dough with posh toppings would be a fiver and less than half the calories.

I think the message that junk food isn’t healthy food is fine actually And before you say pizza isn’t junk I’m sure the homemade Italian version isn’t.

Here Dominos list their ingredients. I got as far as the crust which should be just flour, water, yeast and salt. https://dominos.a.bigcontent.io/v1/static/ingredients-and-allergens.

I agree that good or bad food depends on context. The starving kids in Gaza don’t need broccoli they need calorie dense food.

However normalising crap as some sort of weekly “treat” is the unhealthy bit.

Personally, I think that buying Dominoes for a fat kid even once a month is too much. At that age, it’s the parents responsibility to help him maintain a healthy weight. If he’s overweight now, he’ll likely be enormous by the time he’s 20.

Of course. Some people have this as their normal. But we know as a society this going well

Isn't!

My 20 yo dsis and her bf eat 2/3 dominos per week and they are both skinny rakes. They also get starters,deserts and coca cola on top of it. He plays sport but she doesn't. Obviously it's unhealthy but it can't be that bad 💁‍♀️

At first I was going to say yes that’s fine once a week, particularly as it obviously isn’t your child.
Once I read your updates, and that it’s the child of your boyfriend, with no mother on the scene and a boy who is concerned about his weight it feels different.
Can you easily influence this by following the advice of other posters such as purchasing decent shop bought or making it together?
For us I changed things around a bit by saying only pizza if a side salad is also part of the deal. There will usually only be 3 of us eating and we then share 2 homemade thin crust pizzas, but they are really loaded with homemade tomatoe sauce and toppings to get in the protein and vegetables. I often add spelt or rye to the bases and we will only have one salami type with the other being say chicken and veggies or salmon and rocket.
The ritual feel to it sounds lovely though.

Total waste of money

For that alone I judge.

Very strange that it bothers you enough to start a mums net thread on it! Are you ok?

Some family members are the same but diet is awful the whole week. And the kids are 7 and 11 and they have 2 large Domino pizzas every week. They are both on the over weight side. Takeaways are rewlly bad S they contain poor ingredients and of cheap ingredients and even sugar! I do a fortnightly pizza home made. One with veggies and one with Salami. All home made. Salami is made by my mother using the best cuts of meat and less salt and no sugar.

I had a Dominos for the first time 3 weeks ago and after 1 slice I felt so sick. My stomach felt like the usual takeaway crap in my stomach. It was horrendous. I couldn't finish a 2nd slice at all.
Once your start making home made and uaing good ingredients you can never got back to the take away trash.

I wish I found it as disgusting as some posters , the smell when you pass it is so delicious to me sometimes I give into temptation 😁

Do stop with the “ are you ok”.
People are allowed opinions on things you don’t care about or disagree with, without being unwell.

There was a TV show about healthy eating some years ago. It had two friends, one who apparently ate all sorts of crap (especially Greggs) but never put on any weight.
The TV crew followed her for a week as they do. Yes she would eat a pasty with salad cream and then dinner but they saw that she literally ate nothing else until the next day, 18 hours later. She was also super busy and volunteered, did dance classes etc.
This is an already overweight child consuming even more unnecessary calories.

Me too 😂I really want either the tastebuds or the cooking skills of all these posters who claim to vomit at the smell of a takeaway and/or to be able to make fakeaway at home that is tastier and less fat/salt/sugar than the real thing, it would be great for my waistline and my wallet. But the sad fact is I simply can't come close (and I would say I'm a pretty good cook in general and not averse to buying special tools and ingredients either). Pizza in particular I've never had a homemade one that was a patch on a good restaurant / takeaway version, especially using a normal domestic oven as there's just no way to get the crust crispy enough. I've had ooni ones and they are good (they should be given the ooni is £££) but still not remotely the same thing as a dominos/Papa Johns etc - a naice wood fired oven restaurant one is also very nice but still quite a different thing from the greasy fatty delicious-ness of the cheap takeaway - I know this must be because of all the salt and saturated fat that goes in though.

Same thing with curry, chinese food, anything fried, to me if you take away the unhealthiness you also take away a significant part of the tastiness. Personally I think this is pretty universally acknowledged - take any high end restaurant, you'd be astounded at the volume of cream/butter/salt that goes into the food because that is what makes things delicious. Obviously no-one eats Michelin star food every day or even every week so it doesn't get the attention that cheap fast food does but to me there's no point ignoring the facts which is that in general and for most people healthier, home cooked versions are often less attractive than ultra-processed, takeaway versions of the same meal...

My 19 year old son goes out for lunch at macdonalds or wetherspoons every Thursday when he volunteers at a charity shop. He is massively overweight but has joined a gym so hopefully will lose some

I would say that's bad, whether or not they are healthy the other days. Once a week is too often. We like a Domino's but I feel guilty having it even if it's once in a blue moon. So much salt, I feel so thirsty for hours afterwards!

I got into a weekly Dominos habit for my kids a year or 2 ago. I was really struggling at the time and discovered I could pick up a medium pizza for £8 that fed both kids without any moaning. They split it between them though. The salt worried me more than the calories in the end.

I think the other thing that doesn't get mentioned enough in this debate about UPF and takeaways is about uniformity and consistency. If you get a McDonalds or a Nandos or a Dominos, or even a Tesco (or naice Charlie Bingham) lasagne, you can be near enough certain it will look identical, taste identical, have the exact same consistency every time. Same calories, same allergens. This just isn't possible even with the very nicest and most skillfully made home versions or less processed versions, it's the processing that gives that absolute consistency. Now obviously this isn't a significant problem for me, or maybe even for most people, but you don't have to have a full blown eating or sensory disorder or serious allergy to find that consistency appealing - any even slightly or fussy child (or adult for that matter) will appreciate at least sometimes having an option available that they know for sure they like and can eat 'safely' without suddenly being surprised by it tasting less nice than before or being much chewier or soggier or whatever. Particularly if they aren't a skilled or confident cook themselves - you and I may be good enough cooks to normally not dry out or burn or under-season our food, and to not panic/abandon the whole thing and get a takeaway on the odd occasions we do make something that's not very nice but that doesn't apply to everyone all the time.

That's why my personal view on the whole thing is that it's worth accepting and embracing that UPFs and takeaways are part of our food culture now and probably here to stay, so to work to find ways to reduce the things we know are unhealthy like saturated fat without removing that consistency and/or to improve people's cooking skills and confidence rather than demonising them - I know to people who don't need or want that consistency particularly it's hard to understand why people wouldn't just swap to the 'obviously' healthier and cheaper homemade version but for a lot of people it isn't that simple!

A pizza oven and a cheap mixer is a better investment if you are going to have pizza from dominos that often.

Even based on buying from the supermarket ours has paid for itself at least twice over. You can choose healthier ingredients and it takes less than 30mins to do 6 pizzas.

We worked it out as something like £1.25 per pizza for ingredients and we don't skimp.

Dough takes less than 5 mins to measure out. Whack it in the mixer. Leave to rise. Job done.

Better than Dominoes in taste too. So I have zero temptation to go even though you have to plan ahead.

Well if he's down about his weight (presuming they're overweight) then pizza once a week can't be helping. So yeah should probably eat it less of it, and have a look at what else is being eaten.

"Junk" food is very normalized. I imagine eating a pizza once a week isn't abnormal for the UK but doesn't mean it's healthy. I agree it could be healthy if the rest of your diet contained less fat, sugar, more veg etc but doesn't sound like it is if they're overweight.

Our environment is terrible for managing body weight. Fast food everywhere, processed food everywhere, people are overworked and can't devote the time needed to cook meals at home and convenience food options aren't healthy or affordable, people living in poverty have restricted choices over food, children spend less time outdoors.

There's 1614 calories in a medium sized cheese & tomato Dominoes pizza and gawd knows who much salt and saturated fat. It should be an occasional treat not a weekly meal.

I'm fine with takeaway once a week as a treat. That alone isn't making people overweight or obese. Addressing diet the rest of the time would make more sense than focusing on a once a week treat.

Just asked chatgpt what the average calories in a medium dominoes pizza is. It reckoned 200-300 calories x 8 so upto 2400 calories which is pretty much a grown mans entire daily calorie intake and lets be honest its full of saturated fats so in no way healthy.

That said if its a fit young lad doing lots of exercise and has the metabolism of 1000 silverbacks then it probably isnt touching the sides. Lots of girls could finish one off without breaking sweat.

The real issue is the regularity. Once per week could be a treat which isnt so bad but once per week could become twice per week and then it starts becoming a habit. Just because someone isnt fat doesnt mean they are healthy. Food is fuel and if a diet is full of these types of foods with little attention to fruits and vegtables alongside protein etc then children can become lethargic very quickly.

Would i begrudge a young lad a pizza once in a while. Not at all. Would i make it a weekly occurance, nope that kinda is the first step to a habit.

the calorie info is on the Dominoes website @Tessasanderson see my post 2 up!!