To despair at the crap some people feed their kids

[Apotofrealcoffee]

Currently watching a kid who can’t be more than age 3, tuck in to a packet of ‘squashie’ sweets on the bus. No sign of a tantrum, kid seems perfectly happy looking out the window, but out come the sweets. And to pre empt the ‘snobbery’ thing, the parent seems middle class to me and certainly eloquent.

I regularly see kids tucking into chocolate bars, packets of crisps, lollies, all on the school run. Many of them toddlers in their buggies dropping off older siblings. Parents meeting kids at the school gate with full packets of Oreos, bottles of pop, doughnuts.

I’ve been trying not to judge for years and have been repeatedly told it’s ’just one snapshot of their day’ but honestly, I feel like the time for judgement has entered. I have never fed my toddlers crap like that, let alone just after breakfast. My 3 year old has never had a fizzy drink.

Why, just why! AIBU to feel there needs to be some kind of very direct public health campaign at this point? Maybe even a ‘no sweets at the school gate’ rule?

I think its a waste of a good appetite giving kids junk straight out of school - my DD is the most hungry of all the day at that point so I bring her fruit. She will eat it on the way home as she's famished. Whereas if I brought her a bag of crisps or sweets she'd eat that and then would refuse fruit later on if I tried to offer it.

Its one of the most important things I can do for her laying down good eating habits. I imagine some of the mums think I'm uptight and rigid but I'm not bothered.

If UPFs didn’t exist, your son would still eat.

So you’re saying we don’t have a major obesity and tooth decay problem in kids? And if we do, it isn’t caused by junk food?

When my kids were in primary I always used to bring them a little chocolate bar after school coz they were always starving ! Now they are teenagers I might get them some sweets or crisps a cpl of times a week, but they are both a normal weight and I dont see the issue.

Yes we do bread sticks, sticks of carrot/cucumber with hummus, slices of cheese, a slice of toast with peanut butter

Snap @Arran2024 I remember the very sniffy looks I got taking my two to McDonald’s on the way to a family event. My kids had been severely neglected, McDonald’s was a safe, known option for them and something that was considered a treat. I could have taken them to the family event hungry, and relied on them eating the, very nice, food offered there but they’d have gone hungry. At that point in time their only safe food/place to eat was food made by me and served at home, or McDonald’s.

It’s taken years to wean my kids off crap, little bit by little bit. In those years you’d have seen them eating all sorts of stuff at all times of the day.

Its very easy to judge, but you really don’t know what others are dealing with.

How do you know it isnt the child's birthday and they are having a treat? Are you the sugar police?

It can, but this is why the government needs to take responsibility rather than passing the blame. Parents of ND DC are likely to have less time to do the research, energy and earning potential. I've been burnt out with parenting, when your DCs school have called three times in a week and you cannot get anything done with DC around. You go to your village shop and buy the oven food they stock. Support parents, make convenient healthy choices financially accessible. Create more regulation around UPFs. Don't shame the people that the government put in impossible situations.

I used to sometimes give DC2 a Domino’s personal pizza in the buggy after school.
One night a week we play in the park to pass the time before swimming then a bus trip to take DC1 to dance class. We’d be pretty late back so had no time for much at home.
He wasn’t a fussy eater by any stretch but didn’t and still at 23 doesn’t eat cold sandwiches or much cold food at all except salad vegetables. He didn’t eat much at school from either packed lunch or school dinners.
At three and four he struggled a bit eating from a food flask which is what DC1 used to have. Our options for something he’d eat that would stay warm enough on the walk from home to school, was filling enough to get him through swimming and walking were pretty slim. So every so often it was a pizza from the Dominoes 5 mins from school.

Too many lazy parents. You would think they would care about their children’s health, but obviously it’s easier to just feed them junk food.

Because we have taxpayer funded healthcare and setting children up for a life of health problems affects us all.
Similar reason we used to have public safety videos. I don't really care that much if people I don't know are in car crashes, but it uses public resources, which I pay for.
No one encourages excessive drinking or smoking for the same reasons. Money.

You are entitled to your opinion, OP and I agree, sweets at just after 9am aren't ideal. I see a little girl with her mum walking to school every day. I think she must be about 6. No kind way to put it, but she's very overweight. Every day, at 8am,shes eating a bag of crisps. On the way to school. Just makes me feel sad. But, of course, I'm not privy to her medical history, or any other issues the child may have.

My son is in year 2 now and doesn't bother with snacks after school as much (maybe an orange when he's home), but reception and year 1 we did.

They had lunch at 11.30 in reception, he was starving when he came out. I'd give him a little bit of chocolate/a biscuit or something, a yoghurt and an orange on the way home then he'd be set until tea at about 5/5.30. I think the ritual helped too (he's autistic) and I'd let him have his food before I asked about his day etc, I always got more answers then 🤣

When the heatwave hit this summer (end of Y1) I took an ice lolly in a cool bag for him which he was very grateful for!

At the other end of the scale we were in a cafe years ago and a toddler was there with his mum / nanny. Instead of getting him a nice lunch she pulled out a plastic box full of broccoli and cauliflower florets for him to gnaw on. Poor kid. He looked very sad, who wouldn't..

I agree OP. Sweets are basically plasticky sugar crap with additives. The ruin your gut microbiome. It’s neglectful to feed children this shit everyday. It’s why so many have teeth removed and are fat before puberty.

I am sat here laughing at all these mums on here coming up with excuses . Just admit some mums feed their offspring on a diet of pure crap. No child needs crisps the second they come out of school. If they are hungry give them fruit, carrot sticks, apple slices or a sandwich.
I sat in Greggs the other day and watched a very obese 5/6 yearold shove cale, pasty and full fat drink down her throat. 10 minutes later her and her mum ( finally put her phone down) were in a shop, mum opened a large sharing bag of crisps without a single word and shoved them into her daughters hand. That was not a snap shot, that was that child's life. No child should be that fat.

DD now eats the occassional white bread nutella sandwich as well as the odd ham sandwich. I despair. So I feel your pain.

If it's any consolation (and depending on the age of your child), age 11, she really is slowly but surely improving and will eat a much broader range of food than she would even a year ago. And while she still struggles with any bread that has even a tiny bit of nutritional value, she did eat most of a cheese toasty made with wholemeal the other day. I nearly did a jig of excitement. She has also, in recent months, had a corn taco and a couple of wraps. Progess isn't amazing, but it IS happening. Hang in there!

It's amazing that you think you know my son and his medical history better than I do.

FYI, despite the fact that UPFs do indeed exist, he has still required feeding tubes in the past.

Tell me again that he'd still eat?

I dunno op, do you know what the stats are on sexual abuse of children by their own male relatives?

What does a long car journey have to do with anything? Why does that make it any better for them?

you’ve also mentioned junk food is OK to be used in ‘an emergency’ or during a tantrum? That’s interesting that you condone that.

I've voted YABU - and I don't even have kids so don't give a rat's arse what they eat - because after reading your posts on this thread, it's clear that you're really quite insufferable.

Ultimately it’s a parent’s responsibility.
Parents are legally responsible for feeding their children

I'm not convinced about this. In the case of children with genuine and deep food issues, I think that these were probably the children who in books and stories of the time are known as "weak" or "failing to thrive" or "poorly". The children who, in many cases, didn't make it to adulthood or to old bones. The ones who, if you visit any old graveyard in this country are found buried alongside too many siblings, all at ages that are way too low (obviously, that's also disease, infections, childbirth etc killing them off too).

We know that nutrition for many people in the past was not good - food availability was a key factor combined with cost, preserving options etc. You only have to read even children's stories like Anne of Green Gables or the Laura Ingalls Wilder books to hear how much they looked forward to certain times of year when they could get certain food - and these were families who (in the books) were in a relatively good position in terms of being able to access relatavely good quality and diverse foods.

They are but this is a society level issue, in fact a global one, not just in the UK by any means. We don't have much power compared to Big Food.

Yanbu. There is an obesity crisis, lots of kids being diagnosed with conditions where poor diet may make them worse (eg contributing to tiredness or lack of concentration), and there is also a crisis in dental care with lots of schools now trying to establish tooth brushing to try and reduce the high rates of decay in children. All of this affects all of us and will do so more in the future if trends continue.

But no one can say anything about general trends you see, because any one of those kids 'could' have SEN, be having a one off treat, be having an exceptionally bad day. To me, whilst all this is true, that applies to individuals and its highly unlikely that the hoardes of kids who come out of school with haribo each day fall into these categories. Anyone who cares about this at a population level is judgemental and should mind their own business. And everyone just gets defensive and justifies how they parent, rather than having a sensible discussion about what's going wrong at population level.