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!

Buy frozen fruit then...Raspberries for example. Of just about its not a cost thing you actually want to eat UPF

@soupyspoon So over 50% of families are like this? I don’t believe that. I am inclined to believe it’s regional and is allied to intelligence and generations of poor parenting so good habits are never formed. I don’t believe it’s endemic everywhere though. Are 50% of dc overweight in private schools? I don’t believe it’s even 1%!

Unfortunately a lot of people have not had the luck of growing in a family that prioritised good health and nutrition. It doesn't make it right but there are a lot of nuances why a family are unable to provide a decent menu for their children. We can all sit in judgement and say oh it is so easy but if people have not been taught or informed they just carry on as they are

• If you grew up on instant mash, pot noodles and fish fingers then some people continue that cycle if they are not exposed to other ways of eating
• Poverty contributes greatly - as a previous poster said, fruit goes off where as UPF does not. Also you are more likely to get packet stuff from food banks than fresh food.
• Food costs to cook. People on electric meters that have to watch every single penny (and are likely to be in fuel debt) need to cok something that takes very little energy rather than a long time to simmer down etc.
• Costs - to initally buy all the ingredients - bottles of this and jars of that spice etc is more expensive than buying a ready made jar - those of us with well stocked cupboards are able to make tasty meals out of nothing.
• Some people have never been taught to cook. And that is not linked to poverty! DD has lots of friends who do not know how to cook, we were saying yesterday that they are going to have a shock when they go to uni in september!!! One of her friends mums even gets her toast or cereal ready in the morning.

It's not black and white and while a lot of people are able to break the cycle there are just as many who do need outside help to change their food habits. Of course there are plenty who know what to do but just don't.

im not sure its in the basis of something or someone else 'fixing' the problem, because they dont see a problem in the first place, the idea of something being wrong isnt a concept they would acknowledge

The problem is judgement has become a dirty word, one mustnt judge apparently, its wrong. Its wrong to say 'this isnt ok, you need to do better'. Because then theres every excuse under the sun about MH, ND, time, money, jobs, stress. All these are valid problems but perhaps not excuses.

Its ok to say, you need to eat better without being accused of fat shaming or being ableist.

I think everyone knows that an apple is healthier than crisps etc. What varies is what people see as a normal amount of concern for health.

If you grew up with crisps and everyone around you eats crisps, the idea that you ought not to do it probably seems unreasonable- I imagine you see the apple-eaters in the same way I see instagram influencers who eat nothing but wheatgrass and egg white omelettes. Add to that the fact that manufacturers go to the absolute limit of what’s legal to present their foods as normal healthy choices.

What we should all be focusing on is a) shifting the norm away from upf and b) regulating advertising and marketing.

Well I dont know the percentages, so perhaps strictly speaking if we say its less than 50% then its a minority yes. But only by a few percent

More even stevens then.

Aren the majority of adults overweight?

Kids catching up quickly?

It has NEVER been easier to learn something new…..cooking, nutrition etc…..the information is all there at the touch of a button. People are just too lazy to do it. And fair enough if it’s just you..you do you….but if you’re feeding your kids the same crap because you can’t be arsed to learn or can’t be arsed to get off your bum and cook something then you should be judged and you should be doing better by your kids.

There is bad food - it's literally the point of the conversation. Some food does more harm than good.

When it comes to families, I think a large part of it is trying to come up with something everyone will eat and that you can rustle up between work and evening activities/bedtime. It requires thinking energy as well as doing energy.

Yes I know some people are planning and cooking machines and work 70 hours a week while feeding 12 children like a private chef, but a lot of mere mortals find it hard to keep up. If I didn't have such a supportive and involved husband, I know I'd do a much worse job.

As with so many things, I think it comes down to cost of living.

Some people are just really shit and lazy cooks though. Like my mother.

junk food companies market to poor people… this issue is very complex and blaming people for being morally wrong or judging them doesn’t help. Look at the big corporations profiting off of sending poor people to early graves first.

My adult daughter went non contact with me partly because I fed my children on shepherds pies,holesome home made soups spag Bol, all from scratch . Said I was a lousy cook and that it was child abuse! Even giving her fish and chips was wrong! I worked full time too, but was always home after school

This is very apposite. People on the margins of society - people raising kids in poverty, long-term unemployed, people too sick to work but not sick enough to qualify for help…they are constantly bombarded with judgement, advised to do things that feel (and often are) completely out of reach, told that everything they know is wrong, that they themselves are a social evil and that their children should never have been born. Telling them to eat an apple instead of a bag of crisps, when they may have grown up never having fresh fruit and being given crisps after school, is hardly going to scratch the surface in terms of attitudes to food and diet. People generally have much bigger and scarier fish to fry, like keeping a roof over their heads, so they just keep giving their kids stuff they know, stuff their kids will enjoy and has calories in it, and add the “that should have been a bowl of crudités” to the list of things they feel judged for, but aren’t top of today’s priority list.

Sadly there is

I’m also skeptical about the obesity figures.

I’ve left the UK now, but when I lived there I hardly saw any obese children in my pocket of London (or indeed across the whole of London). I know London is not representative of the whole country, but can it really be the case that half or more of children are overweight/obese??

Don't they get UPFs and stuff in school breakfasts now, which all kids get-I know I can only talk about my own kids' school, but isn't that going to be the same as all state primaries now?? The school lunches look good to me, but mine say a lot of the kids never actually eat any of the fruit and veg, though it is offered.

Coming out of the supermarket today I saw a mother and her child and she’d just handed him a packet of Jammy Dodgers and he was munching his way through them. Yes, it may have been a treat but I did judge.

When I was a child I had one packet of crisps a week (larger size) as a snack and we had biscuits in a tin but also fruit. We did buy Penny sweets but my DB was asthmatic and allergic to chocolate so apparently my DM threw things like Easter eggs away if we were given any and he had carob instead. As teenagers we turned to chocolate bars but again these were in moderation. DM made queen cakes regularly with us as young children with brown not white sugar.

So much laziness out there.

What did she want instead?

You have to remember that half of the population has below-average intelligence. Many people are ignorant, misinformed or unintelligent.

It's exactly like brushing teeth. Every person knows how to brush their teeth, yet a huge number of adults still have appalling oral hygiene, repulsive breath and missing teeth. There are far more factors that go into not being able to brush your own teeth regularly than just the physical ability to do so. MH, executive function, laziness, lack of education, lack of habit etc. Children who grow up in homes where the parents never made them brush their teeth are far less likely to do so as adults.

Same for food. It's easy to see how children growing up in total neglect don't have the skills to maintain a healthy diet over a long time. There have also been studies in "food desserts" in America that parents living in poverty just junk food as a substitute gesture of love because they cannot afford anything else. Giving children a treat is obviously a nice thing, but some families go completely overboard to compensate for what they cannot offer their children otherwise.

UPFs are also readily available and shelf stable. If you're living on the poverty line you need food that is predictable and you know for sure your children will eat it. Supermarket bananas might be underripe on day, overripe another day and you might get horribly sour apples because they're out of season. Fresh produce tends to expire very quickly as well so you cannot bulk shop for 1-2 weeks in advance. If you do bulk shop, you're left with wilted and mushy fruit by the end of the week which even many adults would find too unappetising to eat.

Children will often refuse to eat fresh produce because they simply don't taste good (out of season) or because the parents don't have the skills and space to cook it. So instead of adding an additional problem to their life, it's easier for parents to serve UPF foods which they know will get eaten. Having ready access to healthy food is actually a huge hidden privilege. You need to be able to shop regularly for fresh food, have the space to store it and have the time, skills and equipment to cook them. Even something as trivial as finding the time in the morning to cut up fruit and veg for a lunchbox requires a level of privilege. An obese, single mum trying to get 3 kids to school before work is not going to be chopping apples and cucumbers at 6am. She'll throw a few bags of crisps in the bag out of sheer time necessity.

I've got a child with possible ARFID and he eats quite a few upf laden things. Do I like it, no. But I'm too busy worrying about him eating anything at all that I can't afford to care. Nice to know you would judge me for something beyond my control

You learnt from someone though - probably a parent at home who brought you up on a balanced diet.

You’ve also got the capability to cook (time, knowledge, capacity to learn) and crucially haven’t inadvertently ended up addicted to UPFs.

There’s also been a shift in Whats in tye same products over time. A sandwich, bag of crisps and something sweet (fruit) 25 years ago was often a fairly low upf and balanced meal. That outline lunch bears no relationship to what you’d get on a similar outline today. Prepackaged sandwich with added sugar, salt, preservatives and slathered in mayo. An XL chocolate bar, a fizzy drink and a large bag of favoured crisps with additives.

It’s a good example of where the details make a difference, not the outline.

And in convenience terms, one is available for £3.50 2 minutes walk from my office and I can grab on my lunch break with no time or effort needed at home. The other needs planning, mid week shopping to top up fresh bread or making my own, preparing at home before leaving for work, and washing up containers afterwards.

Im very familiar with the theory, but still buy meal deals far more often than is good for me.

As usual it’s nuanced in real life. Cost, availability, tastes, time, skill and desire all contribute to food choices.

I don’t think anyone has missed that some foods are hyper palatable and massively processed and not healthy.

There is a lot of information out there and I do not believe it’s people thinking they are making healthy choices.

I think there is a lot of fear about change, wasting money and potentially the foods not being for “them”.

Jamie Oliver has been banging on about Turkey twizlers for decades.

There does need to be some big pushes to food companies for honest labelling, I think it’s a South American country that have gone to cigarette type warnings of the health impacts of foods.

The traffic light system is massively abused, lots of green ticks but only if you eat a portion and you’re a man…

Health claims like “whole grain” or “reduced fat” are hiding a lot more than they’re letting on.

If it was as simple as education no one would smoke, take drugs or get pissed.

Agree. I think “there is no bad food” and “everything in moderation” is actually quite dangerous.

Those phrases worked fine in the days where everything was home made. You could have a piece of homemade cake every now and not do yourself any harm, especially as you were probably very active as people used to be and would burn off the extra bit of sugar.

Nowadays there absolutely IS bad food, created in laboratories and bearing no resemblance to real ingredients, designed by multinational companies with no interest in anything other than making money. it’s everywhere, it’s cheap and easy and some children are literally growing up on it. If we don’t get brave enough to actually admit that it’s bad we’ll never change things.

Brown sugar is white sugar with molasses added to it? It isn’t any healthier.

I used to say the same thing, that there's no such thing as "bad food". In recent years I've changed my mind. I firmly believe that the standard US/UK diet of ultraprocessed crap "food" is what's driving the current health crisis.

Too many people eat too much junk food. It probably won't do any lasting harm if someone goes to McDonald's and eats a hamburger, some fries, an apple pie and a milkshake as a one-off. But if they go back and do it again every week, then that is a problem.

Mcdonald's once every 8 to 12 weeks is OK. Once a week is not OK, especially if the same person is eating other junk (eg pizza, ready-meals, pies, pasta sauces, crisps, cakes, biscuits, sweets and so on) in that same week. It's a recipe for metabolic ill-health, leading to obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and, possibly, cancer.