To think that Coco Pops are not a good after school snack?

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Makes me cross that they advertise this during childrens' programmes. DS (5) is asking constantly for them, he knows we don't have 'unhealthy' cereal, but believes the tv.

Am I missing something here, surely Coco Pops can't be good, can they?

LGJ - lol. Come on, get him into line!

just watch bbc then

I dont think they would hurt your ds once a week after school. Could be a LOVELY bribing tool actually.
Switch the telly off if you dont want him influenced by it. Or explain it simply, thats its advertising. And you dont have to believe everything you see.

Oooh I love coco-pops, but I think it's because I was not allowed as a child, just some cheapo cornflakes.
There was a lot I wasn't allowed really, so overindulged during teenage years.

So is it the advertising people don't like or the cereal?

OK so it is quite valid to choose to give your children sweet cereal and my kids have that and worse.

But I do still think it is appalling that this stuff is being aggressively marketed at kids as 'good' for them when it is horrible processed environmentally damaging unhealthy sh*t frankly.

Was freaked by Andrew Marr the other day. Woman author on there saying that breakfast cereals are one of the worst examples of environmentally destructive foods. Made from imported grain heavy with pesticides etc, processed into bland pulp then reconstituted into artificial sweet shapes...apparently consumes 10 calories in production energy costs for every 1 calorie in the food...horrible. Made me want to grow my own food except that I am too f-ing lazy, oh and my kids hate veg.

So what do your children eat when they get home from school then? Mine, if they have anything and they do not always (apart from ds1 who is nearly 12 and needs lots of high energy food) eat biscuits or sometimes crisps or sometimes an ice lolly if it is hot. I prefer them having biscuits to crisps as I think a bit of sugar is good for them whereas salt is not. So given that biscuits is the norm here, why would coco pops be so bad?

mine has a bargain bucket

lol sea

pmsl @ bargain bucket

dumbledoresgirl he often ends up having cake/crisps at the park caff! so I am no one's nutritional saint. Just feel scared by the extent to which children expect processed food (I did too btw when a kid, grew up on flippin coco pops and frosties, and angel delight...appear reasonably healthy though I do have rampant candida lol)

Well done you Mutt. My kids aren't keen on fruit and did not start having snacks at all until very recently.

I hate fruit, and always have. Highly over-rated stuff, imo.

Well Ladies you are making me think, for sure. As I said earlier I do let the dc's have treats ie. cakes, biscuits etc. but they aren't the norm. I guess I find it wrong to normalise chocolate cereal as a snack when there are lots of 'better' options. When I worked in advertising, any commercials aimed at children where considered to be the lowest of the low and most people wouldn't work with those clients.

Now, am off to finish off the rest of the lemon drizzle cake that dc's had for pudding (Scanner ponders buying deprived dc's coco pops).

Buy tescos own brand, they're a pound cheaper and taste the same

My kids don't watch hardly any commercial tv but let them watch 5 live on a Sat morning as a treat,dp and I sat in stunned dismay when the Nestle ad for Golden Nuggets,Cookie Crisp and another equally hideous concoction that I forget came on.

They were selling them as breakfast cereals. We had to laugh as they couldn't bring themselves to lie so had the "mums" saying" I like to know he goes to school on a full stomach", "it's all about balance". That was all they had to say as they know the whole world knows they're full of chemicals and sugar and nobody in there right mind would send a child to school high on a bowl of cookie crisp so they try to target the mums whose kids aren't good at eating breakfast(I'm one).
Well Mr Nestle think I'll battle on with our Oatibix,fruit and toast if you don't mind.

I think it's a disgrace that they get away with it to be frank. Sugar, sweets and the like are absolutely fine in small doses and at the appropriate time and I think eating sweets is part of childhood but sweets disguised as a breakfast food is just not on.

Mila, Ithought that too when I saw that ad!!
Those 'mums' saying how good these crap nestle cereals are. I think that's far more appauling than a coco pops ad.

Mine very rarely has an afterschool snack on my days although maybe an ice pop if it is a hot day. The CM gives him things like toast/bun/grapes/apple.

I don't normally have biscuits or crisps in the house but funnily enough today I went out and bought a pack of chocolate hobnobs because DH and both DC were sick yesterday and I thought thought that a few calories would do them good. So they each had a choc hobnob at after school time (apart from they weren't at school obviously) and then another after tea. Our usual snacks are cheese, fruit, homemade baking, sweets from party bags etc, raisins.

Also today DS asked me if they sold chocolate cereal in Spain because I only allow chocolate cereal on holiday and we have been to France for the last two years so he was a bit unsure about Spain. Sleepovers have educated him but I think initially he though cocopops were a French thing and not available in England.

That's fair enough Mutt. I was only partially being tongue in cheek. I wish my children would eat fruit for a snack (or, in ds2's case, at all) but they don't. And tbh, neither do I. How many of us do, I wonder?

Oh whoops have I committed another faux pas? Shreddies are made by Nestle arent they?

Better fetch the gibbet as well as the firing squad.

Ah you see mila I am exceptionally stingy because oatibix are a weekends only treat - but largely because of the price. Shop's own porridge oats/weetabix/bran flakes are much cheaper. Does anyone know of a shop's own version of oatibix btw?

I thought the great thing about being a kid was that you could eat any old shite, and as long as you ran around it did not matter????

That's my view, Flash, and I'm sticking with it.

Some days, my kid eats so little, the only option I've got left is white or dark chocolate!