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?

My child is not 10, they are only just 2. So yes, tiny.

As has been repeated to you by multiple posters, pure fruit juice is more damaging and abrasive to teeth the to the combination of sugar and also acid.
An oat bar is not a hypo treatment.
I never said I have my child fizzy drinks.

Your posts are riddled with made up stuff just so you can argue.

A baby in a buggy doesn’t need treats, they’re way too young to have the concept of ‘treat’ food and other foods - it’s a hill I will absolutely die on. A treat for what? Why are we telling these tiny kids that good behaviour/needing to distract them etc warrants unhealthy, sugary processed foods? Yes a child after school who has the understanding etc I get, but a baby in a buggy has no concept of treats unless it’s shown to them, they wouldn’t know a packet of squashies is a treat if no one ever gave them squashies in the first place - where was the need to give this child squashies the first time she ever had them? Why not a banana or something if they needed to eat? Why sweets?

Well whoop whoop to you and your extreme healthy living 👏

I agree. It’s literally killing their kids.. my son will occasionally have a chocolate bar but he has never had a fizzy drink, and only had a sweet for the first time when he was about three! I don’t buy sweets in the food shop so it’s just not something he sees.

She is just stating facts. Your need for sarcasm says more about you.

You never bought your 3 year old an ice cream in the summer?

What is extreme about having a treat 2/3 times a week?

You said they ate at the school gate so forgive me for thinking they were older?

But sweets for hypos at 2 is a recipe for disaster over the years.

I’m treating a hypo as I type this. 3.6. I’ve just had 2 cartons of apple juice (through a straw - saves the teeth - hence no fillings!) and I will report back in 1 hour.

How would you feel if someone saw you give your kid Pom bears once and made a whole thread about it?

I have 5 adult sons and they were always allowed sweets and chocolate at the weekend and fizzy drinks, they used their pocket money. Their school lunch boxes used to contain a luncheon meat and pickle sandwich. An apple, a penguin chocolate bar, or a blue ribbon or wagon wheel. A packet of crisps, carton of full sugar Ribena and a yoghurt. My children are adults now, and have turned out absolutely fine. I don't understand the issue. Everything in moderation is fine. My children visited the dentist twice yearly, no fillings required as we made sure that they cleaned their teeth properly . I feel sorry that children these days miss out on sweet treats!

On a scale of shite; pom bears aren’t as high up as squashies. I probably wouldn’t have started it if the kid had been eating Pom bears. But - this is Mumsnet; so a packet of Pom bears mid afternoon is exactly the same as haribo at breakfast time, and we must respect that…

Sorry but that’s an awful lot of shit. There’s now a theory the rise of early onset bowel cancers are linked to UPF consumption as kids. Come on, let’s stop pretending that’s all ok.

Yet, more children are obese than ever before so I don’t think current parents have all the answers

I'm not pretending, just making the point that my adult children have turned out fine x

You said they ate at the school gate so forgive me for thinking they were older?
Because they walk to collect siblings. Not sure why that means you would randomly assign them an age you have made up.

But sweets for hypos at 2 is a recipe for disaster over the years.
I mean having diabetes from the age of 13 months is a disaster over the years regardless for many reasons. Yes my child has a shit hand, yes people like you get judgmental when they have hypos treated in public makes it worse to deal with.

I’m treating a hypo as I type this. 3.6. I’ve just had 2 cartons of apple juice (through a straw - saves the teeth - hence no fillings!) and I will report back in 1 hour.

No, full sugar fruit juice is not better for your teeth due to the acid. You will struggle to find a single dentist that will agree with you, not having a filling is not proof it’s good for your teeth. All the evidence says otherwise.
Nor is it convenient to carry around multiple cartons of juice and then bin each one once 20ml have been drank to treat.

Unfortunately a key part of diabetes control is sugar, as far as teeth are concerned fast acting sugar is largely all much for muchness.

An ice cream on a day out is totally different to a bag of sweets on bus - if we were at home I wouldn’t randomly say here’s a bowl of ice cream, and no I wouldn’t buy them one in a shop if we were just there to get the shopping, a family day out passing an ice cream stand, fine. Same as being at a party they could have cake, if with their cousins and they were having sweets, fine, if they were older than 3 - but absolutely not day to day as random treats at that age

All it says about me is that I don't agree with shaming parents and boasting about how great you are, or i just find it highly annoying anyway!

Sadly that level of organisation is just par for the course with diabetes. Yes, diluted fruit juice is better for your teeth than lucozade, especially when drank through a straw. I understand how you feel but all I’m saying is 18 years of fizzy drinks and sweets every day will cause problems in themselves. I really feel for you; 13 months is just so young for this.

I think "the time for judgement has entered" in the OP could be deployed across pretty much every aspect of culture and society rn.

Individuals make their own decisions - but anyone who's interested in how we got to this point should have a listen to Brad Troemel on 'consolation vices'.

By this he means the wraparound porn, the poisonous food, the effectively legalised drugs and the politics of individual identity with which those of us who aren't billionaires are soothed and calmed in the face of the out-of-control capitalism which is killing society, in the hope that it will prevent us from saying Fuck This Shit.

There is no ‘turning out fine’, our health is in a state of flux and dietary decisions before age 2 are linked to effects 60 or even 70 years later. So you don’t know, is the best answer you can give really - or they’re fine for now (and hopefully will continue to be)

I ate sweets as a child. Every child around me did too, the days of little sweet shops in every neighbourhood. I'm 40 now (still fairly young I know) in good health, healthy weight, still got all my teeth. Surely you have bigger things going on in your own life to think about. A strangers child eating sweets wouldn't even register with me, let alone cause me so much bother to write about it on SM.

Sorry my post is littered with mistakes. Obviously meant to say mum doesn't give a stuff as long as her child shuts up.

Again, at no point have I claimed my child ever had fizzy drinks nor have I said they had sweets every day.

Nor have I said I don’t use fruit juice because I’m disorganised, it’s because it’s worse for teeth and hugely impractical due to age.

You hugely struggle with reading comprehension.

I know someone that completed in the Olympics and she's never eaten a vegetable.

is the OP a health care professional or is she self taught?

The long story short is you saw about 10 minutes of somebody’s whole life. As mothers we (most of us) spend the best part of our days trying to give our children the best life, and survive ourselves whilst doing it. You don’t know what people are going through and to judge someone you don’t know on such a small moment in time I think is cruel. Motherhood can be exhausting and hard and we just about keep our heads above the water most days.

This has turned into a thread about obesity and diabetes and more, which I would understand if you were ranting about someone you KNEW in person who gave their child these treats on a daily basis. But sometimes as mums we give our children a snack we wouldn’t usually give them, whether that be for a ‘treat’ or because we are going through something that requires distraction, or just because they’re in our bloody bag and we forgot the ‘healthy snacks’.

It is really sad to know there are so many parents judging other parents on a day to day basis out there. I’ll hide behind a tree next time I whip out a bag of pom bears!