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!

Basically children are too short and too heavy due to the cheap nutrient poor food being more available than the alternative. This is largely put down here in South Africa due to poverty but I also believe it’s down to education and parents not knowing better.

https://www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2020/11/19/analysis-unlike-the-global-trend-south-africas-children-are-too-short-and-too-fat/

I have a theory about the age of convenience and how at a point in time we were sold this idea that what usually took time and effort (a meal) to prepare was now easily available. Much like the advent of cars, sold to us as a way to make our lives easier but ultimately led us to move less physically. A double edged sword basically … products to make our lives easier but have long term consequences for our health. We should be more enlightened now but I think there are many people who just aren’t for whatever reason (probably mostly socio-economic)

I was on a thread yesterday where a women was trying to convince posters that while she was overweight the fact that she was happy was all that mattered and she didn’t have any desire to address her weight because being happy trumped being slim in her opinion.

And while I get that being comfortable in your own skin and body positivity is something desirable to be attained I wonder how this translates into teaching your own children about healthy eating habits and their long term outcomes? I would rather my children not have to do mental gymnastics and overcome the emotional problems that come before ‘being happy in your own skin’ and are just healthy from the start.

Good grief - this beggars belief. I actually find it offensive after suffering true child abuse form years 0-18

Not everyone has time and it can make a big difference time wise for those on a time budget. They can still make dishes, but quicker and easier whilst working full time

its a choice for some who don’t have financial constraints

Or maybe some of the posters claiming that they just don't have tiiiime to feed their kids a healthy diet could get themselves a slow cooker?

But how do they get a taste for the beige food in the first place? I get that food issues must be very hard to deal with but you never seem to hear about kids who will only eat apples and carrots, it’s always chicken nuggets or similar.

Have you ever had a child with ARFID who is on the verge of being tube fed?

I agree. I feed 6-8 people daily. Just chopping the veg takes a while, even doing it while other stuff is cooking. I usually factor in an hour to cook, that’s not always easy for everyone to find every day. People say omelettes are really quick. Not when you’re cooking 8 of them! I cook from scratch at least 13 out of 14 days but it does take time and planning.

I explained this above.

As a pp has mentioned nobody on here is talking about genuine food issues. I find it hard to believe that every single kid who won’t eat anything but beige crap has ARFID but MN does love a label.

It’s not a label it’s a diagnosis.

If you’re the poster whose child was really struggling then yes you did but that’s not who most people on here are referring to. See my point above about labels.

Industries don't want people to know that what they're being fed isn't proper food and the people eating it don't want to address it because that would mean taking initiative.

As long as society pretends it's ok to eat this way, it will continue.

I watched it and also worried about them all but the fact is, judging people doesn’t help - they are surrounded by advertising and UHP foods constantly. If their own parents ate this way too they never learnt to cook basic healthy foods and are used to the taste of high fat, salt and sugar foods. The parents in this episode were at least open to education and changing things which was great.

Started watching the show last night. That family must spend a fortune on food per week as they have takeaways and each kid has a snack box! That must be pricey even with budget foods

Some people aren't taught the skills. Cooking is easy if you know how and stressful/scary if you don't know how.

My sisters and I grew up with the same parents, mum always cooked (SAHM til I was 11, dad worked shifts and very long hours. He actually cooks more now). Two of us cook from scratch, one of whom is alright but struggles a bit, I'm pretty good now but I love it. The other cannot follow a recipe without panicking, can't use scales, forgets things are in the oven or on the hob, can't fathom the thought of using timers etc.

We were brought up the same, saw the same, same schooling, same teaching from our parents. One just can't do it for herself and has now got to the point as an adult that the thought of it stresses her out so much she'd literally rather do herself chips than think anymore about it.

Having a child with SEN humbles you somewhat. My DS is 5 and has autism, he will only eat ‘junk food’ but I’m just happy he’s eating at all to be frank. The healthiest his diet gets is innocent smoothies, nakd bars and bear yo-yos. He has a multivitamin daily because he thinks it’s a sweet.

He eats canned (only Tesco for some reason) tomato soup with 3 slices of bread and butter most evenings for dinner, he will also eat pizza (homemade) and poached eggs on toast. I can’t trick him with hidden veggies because the taste isn’t right and he’ll then be suspicious and reject it in future.

It’s easy to judge, generally harder to be empathetic and kind.

Im 60, so brought up in the 70s mostly and early teens in the early 80s.
I keep seeing people of around my age saying we didnt have upf back then but we did.
We had Birds Eye ( Findus) savoury pancakes , Vesta packet meals, Heinz steam in a tin puddings, Angel delight, Vienetta , flavoured cereal, flavored yogurts and so on. I remember adverts on childrens tv for things like Sunny Delight. I do think it was the beginning of the upf invasion.
However most of us weren't fat ( I became fat at 14) There isnt one single factor, I dont think ,for the change but a lots of reasons that started stacking up .

As I was. But like me for whatever reason you found yourself in a position of wanting to teach yourself and having the time, resources and ability to do that.

Unfortunately, unlike me you don't recognise that good fortune and turned out to be ignorant, judgemental and terribly insecure.

And your homemade burgers and pizza can still make you overweight and unhealthy.

Your time would be better spent reading books on nutrition than judging others.

This is so true, and those industry lobbies have far too much power "advising" government. Which is why we have weedy messaging about 'enjoy this UPF snack as part of a healthy diet' (WHICH IT DOESN'T CONTRIBUTE TO). Because, oh , jobs might be lost in the biscuit factory.

Every time we have a thread like this on here, I think about a recent BBC programme that was following illegal immigrant families in hotel rooms. Families there were turning the hotel bathrooms into kitchens and using a single hot plate to turn out fresh food because they were despairing of the industrial slop that was provided for free. So I don’t believe that the vast majority of Brits with crap diets are anything other than lazy, and choose to prioritise things other than good nutrition.

I also think the huge rise in ARFID is not helpful. Many of us were fussy eaters as children, and most of us grew out of it. Sticking a label on it just entrenches things.

I also think this idea that families (ie mothers) have to make meals that everyone likes, or different meals for everyone is crazy. We have a weekly meal plan, one day you might have to put up with something that’s not your favourite, tough shit. And if they only have the rice and not the stew/chilli/whathaveyou that night, it’s not going to kill them.

It’s often noted that this is much more of a problem in the UK (and US) than in other countries. We certainly don’t seem to put the same emphasis on eating well and fresh that some other European countries do. You don’t see aisle after aisle of crisps, cake and snacks foods in the supermarkets abroad but you can’t avoid it here. I know it’s generalising a bit but I don’t know why we have such a bad relationship with food.

So I don’t believe that the vast majority of Brits with crap diets are anything other than lazy, and choose to prioritise things other than good nutrition.

I tend to agree with this. I find it hard to believe that an adult doesnt know the difference between a healthy food and an unhealthy food. Maybe my social media and advertising algorithms are stacked in a certain way but the message is certainly out there that UPFs, Macdonalds, sugar, take-aways are not good healthy food. In fact, I have felt more peer pressure to up my protein intake in recent years than to take drugs when I was teen.

I have a dgs who is tube feed, he eats blueberries, strawberries, oats, yogurt, chicken soup ( not chicken and anything else, just chicken) and skips

now if he took to eating beige food and started eating it, and that meant his ng tube could come out permanently - what do you think his parents would do?

Recipes do lie!

I get a veg box from a well known supplier and they sometimes put recipes in. One looked tempting. It said 20 minutes' prep. I counted up the real time it would have taken and it was an hour.

Of course you do get quicker with practice. I can make a homemade bolognaise sauce very quickly because I've done it thousands of times.

It's also (probably mainly) about levels of exercise and activity though, isn't it? My inlaws all eat healthy homecooked food but the adults are all overweight except FIL. He's the most active. They always get in the car to visit each other. It's 5 minutes' walk!