Do people really not know what to eat?

[WilderHawthorn]

Watching ‘what not to eat’, and the family they’ve found are just hopeless. Four small children all shovelled full of UPF junk, parents both obese, freely admit to eating crap constantly.

How adults choose to feed themselves is their choice, but to feed four small kids that much junk? It’s bordering on abuse. An apple/banana costs the same as a packet of crisps, jacket potato is one of the cheapest meals you can make, basic porridge oats and milk for breakfast, it’s not difficult to eat whole foods, so why rely on packaged things?

Freely admit I judge those who feed their children this way and truly despair over childhood obesity stats. I work full time, have 4 DC, DH works full time and I volunteer. I’m very time poor and partially disabled, I still feed my kids well and it doesn’t cost me a fortune. Taught myself to cook. There’s no excuse!

Good point!

And it may be if more help to people to point them in the direction of frozen soffrito, etc, as easy routes to healthy cooking than ingredients they have never heard of.

Friend of mine from years back fed her toddler son Mcdonalds every night as she was in the throws of getting away from an abusive husband. It got so bad with the food, he refused to eat anything other than McDismals. Her parents took over and got the little lad back on track, though to begin with they had to feed normal food from a brown paper McDonalds bag otherwise he refused and kicked off. The mum felt awful but she just needed to survive at the time.

OP, I don't know why people feed kids/eat so bad. Ignorance? Time? The way they were brought up? Lazy? Advertising? Life being hard? Ease of getting it delivered? Am sure there are loads of reasons why. What doesn't seem to work is any government lead healthy eating campaigns, been loads over the years.

We don't eat very well at the moment. My OH is away sorting out his late fathers house and I've been very unwell for a couple of years. He hates cooking and will eat a microwave meal, a takeaway or something with frozen chips chucked into the oven and when he comes here I try and cook if able, like a vegetable chilli. When he's not here, I don't eat dinner, just a sandwich for lunch and an unhealthy snack in the eve, a packet of crisps or something so I can take painkillers.

I cook a healthy meal at least 6 nights out of 7, however when kids hit secondary school, the canteens are packed with rubbish foods, chicken burgers, chips, nachos... Kids are drawn to them and want these foods so will eat them. My daughter will eat nachos every day, but if I sent a pack up I know it wouldn't get eaten.

@MikeRafone Don’t have 4 dc if you haven’t got time to peel veg! You don’t need to peel everything either! All in one bakes and many roasted veg dishes don’t require peeling.

Absolutely no point in reasoning with OP ,he or she have their own agenda !

That’s not the same as not knowing what to eat though. No-one truly believes a family sized bag of Maltesers for a toddler is moderation - the clue is in the name. This person no doubt has reasons that she ended up in this situation and giving in to a toddler meltdown usually does seem to be the path of least resistance but don’t kid yourself she doesn’t know that it’s bad. Unless she actually doesn’t understand the words ‘family sized’, in which case she has bigger problems anyway. She knows.

Whatever it is probably didn't exist 30 years ago and everyone managed.

If certain foods are banned, producers will quickly fill any gaps in the market with a similar product that doesn't meet the threshold for being banned.

I’m not sure this kind of misleading narrative helps anyone. ‘All morning chopping’ might be a bit extreme but I feed six to seven people most nights. Of those four to five are adults, a couple of them are large men doing very physical work who genuinely need a large meal at the end of the way. I love my slow cooker almost an unhealthy amount and have a worrying dependency upon it but it’s really NOT a 3-5 minute situation. To do enough of a really good meal for that many people does take some time, even with a slow cooker. All morning? No. But not 3-5 minutes either. I’m not complaining - I like cooking and consider it something worth making the time for, but I don’t think it’s helpful to act like it’s always soooo easy and sooo quick as a way to tempt people away from UPFs.

This is a lot of words to say you’re a judgemental bovine.

London is not very representative.

Of course, but in extreme cases the child eventually just refuses the alternative altogether. How often do you hear 'my toddler/kid will only eat beige food', even just on this thread. Parents end up desperate just to get their kid to eat anything at all.

What foods would you ban?

The ARFID thing is a red herring, because genuine ARFID is rare. It seems it's not on these threads because people congregate on these boards for advice, etc., but most families aren't dealing with that.

Fussiness (not ARFID) where kids are demanding beige food is a parent problem. Don't give it to them to begin with and they won't get a taste for it, or actually limit it and teach them that no means no. It's my duty as a parent to ensure my children are healthy; that means sitting through the tantrums of, "I want cake, I don't WANT fruit!". They'll soon want fruit if they're not given other options. I'm not going to be emotionally manipulated by a 7 year old into feeding them unhealthy food every day because they'll turn their nose up to decent home cooked meals. They eat or they don't, but that's all that's there.

Edit: I should add; my kids are given a variety of choice. I include them in meal plans, and they're actually really good in terms of their eating. They've both definitely been through fussy phases and I've just stuck to my guns. The only genuine dislikes from either of them are mushrooms and courgette, which is absolutely fair enough. They've tried both enough times and in enough of a variety of ways for me to know they're not just being silly about it.

My point is the PP’s own point. I think every parent will have noted that the arrival of DC does have quite a substantial impact one one’s life. Some have no clue what parenthood will bring, some have expectations about exactly how things will pan out , but no one know what the impact is until it happens. No battle survives first contact with ‘the enemy!’ (Said expression of course coined in jest)

When I left home, at 18, I didn't know how to boil an egg or make tea. Genuinely, had no idea where to start, how to boil water etc. But I realized quickly that frozen pizzas and shite food I had been raised on was overall extremely expensive.

So I went online and learned. Entirely alone and on a student budget with my shitty student loan on a tiny one burner.

When I was dating, i asked men on the first date if they could cook. I wanted a family and didn't want to be the only cook, it was important to me.

My toddler has I'd say 95% homemade food, partly because of allergies, partly becuase DH and I are good cooks who prioritise fresh food. It's actually not a big burden at this point although it may seem like it to some.

There's no excuse in my view, and it's terrible parenting.

These programmes are designed to make the people watching feel superior, aimed at the judgmental, who like to look down on people.

Whatever a respected panel of scientists says is dangerous to health to the point that the risks of eating it outweigh any benefits.

I think we are actually kind of agreeing with each other...

You say "Don't give it to them to begin with and they won't get a taste for it".

I agree wholeheartedly, but I would also then ask:
-why is the dominant advice still 'everything in moderation' and don't demonise foods?
-if a food is that addictive and bad for you that it shouldn't be fed to children at all, why is it even on the shelves, and in pretty packaging with misleading health promises all over it?

Most people honestly don't know who and what to believe anymore.

One can indeed spend a lot of money on the best of anything, which is not to take away from the reality that unfortunately it is overwhelmingly the case (to simplify massively!) that one can acquire the calorific ‘volume’ required much more affordable’ with mass produced processed industrial foods than from spoilable fresh produce, or indeed high end niche ‘craft’ snack foods..

Ah, apologies! I hadn't read your other posts.

I fully agree with you. I don't think they should be so freely available at all, not when people are either so willing to purchase something they know is unhealthy and feed it not only to themselves but their children, or if they really cannot grasp the consequences of this sort of diet.

I do believe that a lot of people do know. I can understand that some might genuinely struggle, but really it's not hard to understand that eating a frozen pizza and chips vs. a homemade soup/cottage pie/fish and veg is a poor choice. People know a bar of chocolate isn't as healthy as a banana. I believe it's mostly about choice, and people make poor choices and make excuses for them and scream judgment when they're called on it.

The dominant advice about moderation was okay years back when these things really were eaten in moderation. Now people think it's moderation to eat a frozen pizza and chips, a bar of chocolate, then have a side salad and a diet coke so that somehow eradicates the bad. Or they pretend they think that, anyway. It's a big mess, and people choose ease and what feels good in the moment.

I think also the dominant advice about moderation dates back to a time when food wasn't quite so industrialised and full of god knows what, so the 'bad' choices weren't actually quite as bad.

Yes, definitely. It was okay to grab a cake mid week for dessert as it wasn't full of all sorts of crap. Takeaway was fish and chips. A few digestive biscuits before bed with a cup of tea. Those sort of unhealthy things really were alright in moderation, but these days it's not just a few items of indulgence that are crammed full of rubbish. And people are still applying the same rules.

I think it’s less refined, not unrefined.

Surely the case for children is not obesity but rather malnutrition from poor food choices and that’s why all these posters are not seeing obese children walking around in their neighborhoods.

Obesity seems to be largely an adult problem and Id imagine it has something to do with human biology and how poor eating habits from childhood translate into adulthood.

I live in Africa and poor eating and malnutrition is well known to affect many factors in determining a child’s future, not just their weight but how well they do in life in general and it actually becomes an economic problem for the country with less successful adults. And it’s not always about poverty but also lack of education about the impact that food has on children. I wonder how this translates into a country such as the UK where it is assumed that people know better.

And where poverty and education isn't an issue, people still don't know what they should be eating.

I could post 'eat lots of fruit and veggies' on social media - universally sound advice, you'd think? But people would come along and shout at me about the carbs in potatoes, and the sugar in fruit, and FODMAPs and how nightshade vegetables kill your gut, etc. etc.

They'll all be following some online 'expert' who is very charismatic and actually sounds like they have all the credentials and research backing them.