To be shocked by this government dietary advice for babies and children?

[fourfoxsakes]

from the government in Northern Ireland that is published online? Surely we don’t do these things any more such as mixing baby rice with milk and advising people to feed their very young children rice crispies and cornflakes for breakfast and advising people to give juice with meals! Surely this is bad advice, I am honestly surprised that the government have been allowed to publish this crap. I have no doubt people still do these things which is an individual parenting choice but surely the government shouldn’t be advocating for this?

They’re not all like that though, are they? 🙄

But if you want to be educated - fine. There are children in this country who never see a dentist. There are children raised in families where dental hygiene is ignored. There are children who are raised on bottles of full fat Coke, bars of chocolate and beige oven food covered in ketchup and salt.

A bowl of low sugar, fortified cereal and a cup of diluted apple juice is not the reason there is an obesity crisis, and the fact that you think it is shows how bloody privileged you are.

Good for you - you clearly deserve a medal for being so much better than everyone else 🙄

I don't get the cost argument... surely juice costs more than tap water?

Quantity has a lot to do with it, but unlikely to be quantity of breakfast cereal as such. More likely a combination of what they have for main meals, plus between-meal snacks.

Childhood obesity was a lot more rare in the 1960s/70s etc. but if anything, sugary breakfast cereals were even more popular in those days.

True, maybe it’s better to send them a TikTok instead

Huh? My toddler often has fortified cereal for breakfast.

Privilege? Or just a reasonable sense of how to live a healthy life?

Nutritious food is not expensive. It's just that people in the UK are too lazy and ignorant to want it, buy it and make it. (And have a bizarre willingness to spend their meagre funds on vapes and alcohol and streaming and fillers and nails and you name it...)

Cornershop doesn't have healthy options? Get off the couch, switch off the tv and take a walk to a bigger supermarket. Plenty available there.

The fact is that obesity and other life style driven issues are off the charts in this country. The NHS pandering to people's feckless attitudes is a massive part of the problem.

Fair enough - hopefully now you can understand the reality for many people and realise how fortunate you and your family are to be able to afford and eat the things you do.

Yes, privilege. But seeing as your post is filled with lazy stereotypes about vapes and fake nails, I won’t waste my time engaging with you about it.

I had the opposite when my son was in hospital. They told me as long as he had something, it didn't matter as long as he fancied it because it was better than him not eating.

I have never seen ham, cheese, tomato or cucumber in a schools breakfast club. I assume you’re on the continent where that’s more common.

I don’t think the advice is terrible when you look across the day/week - better that kids are fed and the advice is accessible for most parents.

True. And Rice Krispies are more expensive than porridge or toast. Packaged (usually sugary) cereals with child-attracting cartoons and bright colours on the boxes are a prime example of how companies can make huge profits by selling a lie. If we didn't introduce added sugar to our kids, we'd do them a big favour.

Yes, that's actually a rather big deal. I'm surprised more hasn't been made of it in the thread, especially as multiple people have posted lower iron meals as allegedly health alternatives. The response to that will probably be that there are other ways to get iron in.. but we're not!

I'm sure it means dilute pop which is fine and I dont see anything wrong with the advice tbh ! My kids are 15 and 11 and eat cereal with milk

This may help you to understand the pathological process:

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/sugars-and-dental-caries

Agree with this.

I used to work in a role writing public health guidance (not dietary). In the UK, for most topics any national guidance for the public has to be suitable for an average reading/comprehension age of 8. That's going to make a proper explanation of macros etc and maximising nutrition pretty difficult.

Advice says heavily diluted, which is fine. And eating fruit has the same effect on teeth (fructose turns to acid in the mouth), which means one should not clean teeth within an hour of eating any (that includes stuff like tomatoes).
Eating a cereal e.g. rice crispies is a way of getting a child to drink milk, which is necessary for bone development etc since it contains calcium and Vit D (at least it will as long as it is whole milk - skimmed milk does not contain enough fat for the body to utilise the Vit D in the milk, which is why tins of dried skimmed milk are labelled as not suitable for babies).
The other foods listed are fine. Nothing wrong with Irish stew, tuna fish, sweetcorn etc. We don't all live on sundried tomatoes and Mediterranean diets esp. in cold weather!

Also, ham is a Group 1 Carcinogen - I actually think it's still ok to give to a child in moderation, but presumably people who wouldn't give Rice Crispies because of the alleged lack of nutrition wouldn't.

Useful fact sheet. It's the sugar that does the damage since it becomes acidic in the mouth (all sugars do this, so eating fruit is no better than drinking orange squash). Before the arrival of the spice sugar in Europe dental caries were a rarity.

People aren’t getting obese due to having Rice Krispies for breakfast and the odd glass of orange juice.

And thank you for taking it on board - that's really rare on a chat thread like this so (I genuinely mean this, I know it sounds patronising/sarcastic!) I think you should be given credit for recognising your own bias and re-examining your thought processes.

This leaflet is giving honest and clear advice. It’s just aiming for a good and achievable diet for young children rather than an ideal but likely unachievable diet or seemingly unrealistic one.

The point of the cereal is the milk, I think, which (as long as it is whole milk or at least only semi-skimmed) contains calcium and Vit D which the body can access. What cereal is irrelevant (but better not to have ones with sugar all over them!).

This feels very much like a stealth boast

Fruit is no better than fruit juice - because the sugars contained in both (and all sugars) turn to acid in the mouth and weaken enamel. Advice my dentist gave is not to clean the teeth within an hour of eating any fruit or drinking fruit juice.