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!

All dc are measured and weighed at school in year reception and year 6. That’s where the data comes from.

Unless the parents opt out (I did for my ARFID AuDHD child)

But yoghurt and cheese are UPF, so yes, they have a point

An ordinary block of cheese like cheddar, Brie or ball of mozzarella is not UPF. Bags of grated cheese, cheese spread, cheese strings etc are UPF.

Plain Greek yogurt is not UPF. Flavoured yogurts are.

Real yoghurt and real cheese are not UPF.

There is a difference between processed and UPF and that difference is very important.

Cooking isn’t hard. Getting it right, making it taste nice, thinking how to use up ingredients, thinking x will go with y does take practice and a bit of research and also eating nice food cooked by other people.

My eldest is a healthy weight, I suspect my youngest (20 months) is 'overweight' but he's not super active yet. He's also obsessed with food which I find difficult to know how to manage, whereas my eldest will happily stop eating if he feels full and has that natural 'self regulation'. Its definitely made me realise how different children can be with their attitudes towards food. But of course, feeding children unbalanced diets is a different thing altogether

We are vegan so I have to consider our diet more than most. I'd say we eat fairly average with plenty of freshly made meals, and a few 'easy'/processed food meals too.

Also I know this is only a fraction of what a child eats, but I do wish kids places e.g play centres had healthier snack options. There is rarely fruit for sale but plenty of chocolate/crisps

I grew up in crappy food (70s) I don’t remember eating anything that wasn’t processed, apart from salads once a week, although we always used to have either luncheon meat or corned beef with it 🤮. We only ever got fresh fruit as a treat at Christmas .

I think as others have said was we never snacked at home or out, we never had biscuits or fizzy drinks in the house and where I grew up the only take away was the chippy and that was a massive treat. We were out all the time when we were younger.

But I suppose times change, I live in a city and my kids are out a lot but I wouldn’t have wanted them
being outside all day like I was and the snacking was my fault because I used to give them to them at a young age (albeit what I would think of as healthy snacks). As a family we do eat healthily and I really try to keep UPFs to a minimum but I find cooking easy and between us DH and I luckily have time to make dinner from scratch every night. But not everyone does and I think most people do a bit of both, and UPFs in moderation is fine I would say.

There is definitely an element for those that have no health or wellbeing issues that the less you do the less you want to do. If you find you can go through life in an ok way without expending much effort or energy then that will continue. It will continue until something becomes so uncomfortable that change is forced.

Being poor and ignorant about food is no excuse for making your kid fat. I had my first kid at 16 and lived in a homeless shelter for years sharing the kitchen with crazy bitches, none of my kids have ever been fat.
Also never met anyone ever who genuinely didn’t know eating excessive chocolate would make them fat, they still give their toddler’s family packs of maltesers.
Then there’s the people who are literally richer than me now claiming they’re too poor to eat a vegetable and inhale domino’s pizzas (which literally cost about £15 per pizza last time I checked).

It’s child abuse to make a kid fat. The excuses are bs

Every child is weighed in reception or Y1.

You only get a letter if they are under or overweight.

(My DD is under but we didn’t get the letter as we were already under an nhs paediatric dietitian as she has a medically restricted diet)

Well said.
It is poverty and lack of education but it’s also flipping exhaustion.
i feed my DDs fish fingers or sausages once or twice a week becuse 5 days I’m battling to make sure something healthy and freshly cooked from scratch gets into them and is actually eaten (one also has a highly restricted diet medically so it’s completely stressful)
UPF are popular because they remove some of this thinking working from an absolutely overwhelmed population. Nobody wants to discuss this part of it.
Also there’s a misunderstanding about healthy food. No food is bad but of course things like crisps should be in moderation, but everyone saying porridge oats for breakfast are misguided too - they’re absolutely appalling for your blood sugar level.

Yoghurt and cheese are PROCESSED not ULTRA-processed (generally).

You can make both yoghurt and cheese at home. If you wanted to.

How’s it poverty and lack of education who’s out here not knowing inhaling the calories is making them big? I became a mum at 16 lived in a homeless shelter for years sharing the kitchen with crazy bitches, none of my kids have ever been fat. I see people who were 30 when they had their first kid went to college went to uni even and still handing them family size bags of maltesers. Do you really think they’re ignorant also with more money than me going on about vegetables being expensive while they eat £15 domino’s pizzas. Making your kid fat is child abuse and there’s no excuse

Instant oats are high GI for blood sugar. Less processed oats (steel cut) are much lower GI. Think 65 (instant) vs 42 (steel cut). So again it depends on level of processing.

Glad he confirmed that weetabix, fruit and fibre and whole oat porridge are fine. I'll keep on with those for breakfast as the whole grain fibre is good.

There very much is

steel cut or minimally processed oats do not massively raise blood sugar. A giant bowl of rolled oats with sweet toppings or a processed porridge/ instant porridge may raise blood sugars. But it’s not a bad option, it’s filling and full of fibre and low processing. Bran flakes or all bran might be better but not as accepted by many kids.

Yet another thread where people dont know the difference between processed and UPF even though there is no definition of UPFs anyway

Im just about to watch the programme.

I use steel cut oats and cook them up in batches as I like to cook mine for a long time, wouldnt have that time each morning. I use full fat milk.

My children has ARFID, literally cannot have home cooked food since his only hot food is nuggets and chips

Thankfully no one looking at him judges the upf quality of his diet because hes underweight

Without knowing the full ins and outs of people's lives, medical history etc then your judging based on a bias

They’re really do! I’m not talking about the processed ones. I’ve seen it for myself - I had to measure my blood sugar when I was pregnant. The spike is off the scale.
Sure, the nutrients in the oats+dairy are much, much better for you than say a sugary cereal - but it’s not a stable energy source and eaten every day it definitely could lead to insulin resistance.
That’s not to say I don’t eat porridge - I do, and so do my children. Just to point out that the way food is categorised is far more complex than it first seems.

I have noticed the same differences between my two young daughters. The obesogenic environment in the UK much like in the USA, certainly doesn’t help. The high density of fast‑food outlets, piles of sweets and chocolates at supermarket entrances and the dominance of ultra‑processed foods filled with additives makes healthy choices unnecessarily difficult.

Realistically, only strong government policy can keep this environment in check. Unfortunately, that will not change due to vested interests: food‑industry lobbying, big pharma weight‑loss drugs and politicians’ fear of being labelled a “nanny state” and losing votes.

So, in the absence of meaningful intervention, it falls to individuals and families to protect themselves. For us, that means:

1. Cooking meals from scratch every day, with a balance of vegetables, protein, and sensible portions of carbohydrates.
2. Strictly limiting the children’s intake of sweets, chocolate, and fast food. Any excess from parties or school goes straight in the bin.
3. Being disciplined about what goes into the shopping basket in the first place e.g. no fizzy drinks or junk foods.
4. Avoiding adult‑sized portions for the kids.

A friend of mine, who has struggled with weight himself and seen those habits sadly pass on to his family, thinks this approach is too military regiment and life kill joy. I still live a normal life drink beer etc. Its about moderation. But to me, it’s simply what’s required to give my children the best chance of staying healthy in an environment stacked against them. Being overweight as a child affects confidence and self expression.

People know, they just don’t. Most people with weight issues know exactly what the problem is, it’s just hard for them to put into practise.

So Ive already got an issue with something this Tim Spector said, he uses flavoured packaged rice as an example of UPF and shows an Uncle Ben pack as an example

The ingredients do have one item in it, citric acid which would mean its a UPF

I think thats the wrong focus

He says himself there is no definition of UPF and then uses a really poor example of a food which is probably just about ok.

obviously those rices are very expensive compared to cooking your own but thats not where he was coming from

Im probably going to slag this progamme off all the way through!!