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?

These are the parents who shoot you a dirty look when you light a fag in the pub garden while their little Alfie has his snout in a bag of crisps 😂

Maybe say, "You can't have that, it's bad for your health."

If by "Look a certain way" you mean not being overweight then yes you can only be healthy if you look a certain way. Being overweight is not healthy, having cavities as a child is not healthy. I

I don't believe for a minute that a three year old eating a bag of sweets at 9am when they have only just had their breakfast and have the rest of the day to get through without consuming more calories than their body needs when there will be twoore.meals at least and multiple snacks is eating a healthy diet. I just don't. The blood sugar high from the sweets then the drop afterwards will start the rollercoaster of hunger and craving sugar for the rest of the day. Stop pretending that it's ok to eat a load of sugary sweets early morning when the rest of their diet is stellar to compensate. It will be nigh on impossible for a child eating a bag of sweets at 9am to maintain a stellar diet the rest of the time and parent who think that is ok are probably not capable of providing a stellar diet anyway.

It’s not just the over treatment it’s giving a kid sweets for every hypo. That’s going to add up to a LOT of junk over his childhood. All I’m saying is there are better, healthier alternatives. Which I use myself. The juice instantly targets the hypo and provides that quick little spike. The oats then provide slow release carbs to prop it up until the excess of insulin has ceased to take effect.

To be honest i just saw a probable 3 year old in a buggy on the bus .
he had a bag of crisps.
When finished a dummy was put in his mouth. And a screen given to him . His mum had her phone plugged into her ears facing away from him at an angle watching something.
The whole 3/4 he journey thro lovely countryside.
I must admit it was food or screen given to him .
At one point he was saying hi to people through his dummy and called to his mum “ look Look” - ignored.
Of course she could be an exhausted mum , but a huge part of me felt that his world , his vocab , his interactions and possible development was being shut down for the parents needs .
I felt sad .

My point is how do they know crisps and nuggets are the only thing they’ll eat unless they are regularly giving them those things in the first place. I understand arfid, my nephew has arfid. His safe foods are breadsticks, dry Cheerios, Heinz tomato soup. Not perfect but not McDonald’s either

Nothing wrong with cake! She’s obviously looking forward to having a treat with him in a cafe. We love cake, all fit and healthy and active.

We know the difference between scoffing cake daily and having a nice treat at the weekend. 10km walk is a stroll for us. I look forward to going for hot chocolate and cake with my kids.

And then dared to use their own phone 😂

You can tell the kids at parties that have never had sugar. My kids always had biscuits after a busy day at school or an ice cream in the summer. Their Easter Eggs sit on the side for weeks as chocolate is normal and they understand everything in moderation.

I don’t think you should give kids sweets when they are upset/ having a tantrum. That would not be a good habit/ association for them…

Probably some Halloween sweets?!

Do you just have one kid or all younger?

If you have a range of ages the little ones do tend to be exposed to sweet treats earlier. It’s easy to say no to sweets to baby no.1 til they’re say 3 or 4. Less easy for subsequent kids who see older siblings enjoying them from time to time!

Who said I use sweets for every hypo?
I said you would see my child eating a sweet and you would get on your judgmental high horse, as you have done on so many posts, without actually knowing anything about us.

You clearly don’t understand what you’re talking about. There is almost no difference in the spike between juice and sweets, what matters is the appropriate amount of carbs are given for a hypo based on weight.
Cartons of juice are an impracticable thing to carry around for a young child that needs small doses, plus fruit juice has the addition of acid and many dentists deem it to be even worse for teeth than sweets.

You also don’t have slow releasing carbs after treating a hypo if you’re on a pump, an oat bar would continue to send BG to very high levels.

It would be wise to stop dishing out dangerous advice.

I do think we clutch our pearls too vigorously these days. The previous long lived generations ate copious amounts of tea and cake. Most of them smoked and drank too. What was different was that it was all home made. They are now in their 90's still downing a toddy or two.

Oh but we do love to pearl clutch and convince ourselves 'we know better now'

If you are a type 1 diabetic at least your feelings on this make sense. It's a very hard condition to live with long term and much easier if you're eating a stable and nutritious diet and predictable insulin use

You’re getting flamed OP but I completely agree with you, there is no need for a 1 year old dropping their 4 year old brother to school at 9am to be eating sweets. Yes there’s ND kids but not all because no way is every single example of this we all see ND kids, it’s way over the population average if so. I don’t care if they eat organic food the other 95% of the time, it still is so unnecessary this 5%. It’s so so so prevalent now and it’s actually hard to watch - no one is saying at a cinema, ice cream after lunch in a restaurant, etc but so much I see is just random snacking. My friend cut up a Krispy Kreme donut for her 1 year old cos she kept pointing at it - things like that are mad!

Could you imagine if Enid Blyton books were published today? MNers would be boycotting them over the diets of the children alone.

Ah the practically perfect Sweden.

Is Sweden a myth, is it real, is it too good to exist in an imperfect world?

Most of us will never know....

It used to be normal to be starving hungry before meals. Why do people think this is bad? I remember being ravenous as a child at times in the day leading up to a meal. It's actually good for you to have periods of hunger. This modern continous keeping hunger at bay is not.

I'm frankly shocked at the responses on here. "It's just a snapshot".... oh okay that makes it okay then does it?

We are guardians of our children's health and getting them used to sugary snacks or ultra processed food is the opposite of good for them. Yes even in a snapshot situation.

Alot f people on here could do with educating themselves for the sake of their children's future.

I agree my DD has argued - she eats cheerios, plain chicken, plain rice, rice cakes. I bloody despair, but I did dig my heels in more about not giving her junk based on her tendency to go for those safe foods that are familiar on each bite.

Aware of that as mine range from 23-40. That child in Greggs had a parent that didn't give a stuff as lomh as her child shit yp and she could yap on her phone. No not all children are brought up like that but far too many are.

So… Who decides what’s good or bad? Is peanut butter bad? It’s high in fat. Are tortilla chips bad? Tofu? They’re highly processed. But all of these things contain minimal ingredients. What about a home made cake? Is that bad? Beans in a can? A cracker vs a biscuit.

Actual scientists can’t decide what defines a UPF.

NO food is “bad”. Eating food is not a moral failing. No food is naughty, or sinful, or a guilty pleasure. Food is just food and when we can get our heads around that and stop moralising then we actually might have a chance at tackling the obesity that you’re so “concerned” with while staring at people on buses.

Yes this! My DS still had a few little choc eggs from the Easter bunny until very recently!

A nurse gave my DD (3) a small bag of sweets after she had her flu vaccine at 9am today. We were walking down the high street with her eating her sweets by 9.30.

But today she’s also had scrambled eggs on homemade sourdough toast, homemade chicken and pearl barley soup, and I’m just making a carrot and sweet potato tray bake for dinner.

She probably won’t have another chocolate/sweet treat for a few days, she’s not super into them, but by your judgement I’m evil mother of the year 🙄

For avoidance of doubt, I voted YABU

But the choice and balance of different foods is the most important thing?

You’d soon know about it if chocolate and Haribo were your main food sources over a long period of time.

And to everyone being harsh to op, she isn’t actually criticising parents and children face to face you know, she is expressing an opinion anonymously on an open forum, something she is entitled to do! All of the cute babies on buses drinking Cola are obliviously unaware!