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?

Fructose is actually worse for your body, in larger quantities it puts excess pressure on your liver as the only organ that can process it. Glucose on the other hand is so demonised by society yet can be processed by your whole body and is the primary source of fuel for your brain!

Look, I’m obviously not saying have a freddo instead of a banana, I’m saying we should stop demonising some food and putting others on a pedestal. Everything in moderation is such a cliche but it really does the job.

Assume from posts like these that these are the people giving their children doughnuts at the school gates! Why?!

And it IS absolutely everyone's business how future adults are being raised.

I don't know any parent of a child with a restricted diet who has automatically just accepted it right away.

Many of these children are also under health professionals who are familiar with their medical history and agree that their restricted diet is due to medical reasons such as ND etc.

Yeah but a banana also has potassium, fibre, bulk. That's not to say I don't allow a freddo if they want it because I do but there's no point pretending a nana isn't better

This specific incident WAS a snapshot, so I think YABU to judge that specifically, but in terms of what we see more broadly, I agree with you OP. Obesity costs the NHS around £6.5 billion a year and is the second biggest preventable cause of cancer. More than one in four adults are obese and the proportion of children aged 10-11 isn't far behind either. The health implications of poor diet are enormous and wide-ranging and many people are in absolute denial about it.

So has processed meat. I assume you’ve never given a child a ham sandwich, or sausage and mash for dinner?

I don’t think a lot of people actually realise how badly they’re raising their kids. They swear blind the kids eat well, that they’re consistent with things like sleep. Then you observe them for a while and realise that’s because they have a very different idea of what is ‘healthy’ to you.

When I was at school in the 80s/90s, I'd say almost everyone had a bag of crisps and some kind of chocolate in their packed lunch every day. Along with a sandwich, juice or squash, and a piece of fruit. Is this not normal any more?

Childhood obesity rates were much lower in the 80s/90s than now (certainly my friends and I grew up eating sweets and chocolate practically every day but we weren't overweight), and yet there is much more awareness and promotion of healthy eating today compared to then. Clearly other factors are at play. I'd guess off the top of my head:

• Junk food is comparatively cheaper today compared to other options, than it was then. So easier to end up eating comparatively more of it.

• More likely that parents are both working full time today, less time and head space to prepare home cooked/healthy snacks and meals and get children to eat them, grabbing junk food is quicker and easier?

• Kids are less active because screens are everywhere providing sedentary entertainment, compared to more playing outdoors and being active then.

Unless you're a teetotal, whole foods eating, highly active healthy adult with a perfect BMI, then I always think people are better getting their own lives in order before fussing about other people's. And even if you tick all those boxes, I'm sure your time could be better spent making even further improvements to your own health.

Crikey, I didn’t realise people were judging me when I take in a gingerbread man for school pick up, complete with jelly sweet buttons… Does it make a difference if it’s home made?!
It is literally a snap shot of a day and it’s sad that you were sat on that bus with nothing better to do apart from critically think about someone else who was minding their own business.
My youngest as porridge for breakfast, a fruit or veg snack at school, a school dinner as is of the age where everyone gets one, usually a homemade sweet treat when I collect from school and then an evening meal cooked from scratch with plenty of veggies.
They get sweets and occasionally a fizzy drink as a treat. Their teeth are perfect, they are all perfect weight, play sports etc
You have no idea what that child eats the rest of the time, good for you if your child never has sweets or fizzy….

Ah, I knew we would get the posts like this- that make no distinction between an occasional treat, and then just letting your kid eat sweets on the school run every morning. Because if you ever let your kid eat ham then GOTCHA - you’re as bad as the parent giving their 6 year old choco puffs with sugar for breakfast. Deary me!

PS - no, I don’t buy ham or processed meat.

😂No wonder there's a problem!

A medium banana (about 7 inches long, 118 grams) contains 105 calories, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 14 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein. It has essentially no fat.

Freddo:
MILK*, sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, vegetable fats (palm, shea), emulsifiers (E442, E476), flavourings. *The equivalent of 426 ml of fresh liquid milk in every 227 g of milk chocolate. MILK SOLIDS 20% MINIMUM, ACTUAL 23%. COCOA SOLIDS 20% MINIMUM. CONTAINS VEGETABLE FATS IN ADDITION TO COCOA BUTTER

For years, if you looked at me and my DD you wouldn't have seen her eating crisps, chocolates, sweets etc. So you perhaps would have thought I was the "good" parent. What you wouldn't have seen was the endless battles we were having in the background because she was a fussy eater, wouldn't try anything new and I felt like she was surviving on fancy chicken nuggets and chips, broccoli, carrots and spaghetti bolognaise.

A friend has two extremely overweight children. It is a source of endless worry for her. They are NOT eating a lot of junk - she's militant on their diet. But both, given the chance, will eat ALL the junk and the more overweight one is even more fussy and difficult with "regular" food than my DD was.

DS is very active, healthy and slim but he has not always been so and it's a source of endless frustration for him that many of his friends don't eat well, eat lots of sweets and junk and yet are skinny as rakes whereas he eats very healthily and avoids too much junk but has to watch it a bit.

So yes, it's not unreasonabel to wonder about the treats and the like, but actually, it's meaningless. I know plenty of children who get treats but also eat extremely healthy, diverse diets and are very active, very healthy and appropraitely sized. And I know children like the ones above who are seldom allowed chocolate or crisps but because of other issues are seriously overweight.

I'm curious op what your children eat and drink? Do they have squash? Do they have an occassional biscuit or packet of crisps? Do they have a treat of chocolate sometimes?

How do you know this wasn't a once a week treat for this child?

I believe that a treat does no-one any harm as long as a good varied diet is eaten usually

This, all day long.

@Apotofrealcoffee , I've seen kids walking along the street just after school eating ice cream lollies (Feast/Magnum type) in the Winter.
They are usually fat children.

Ok but a Freddo has more calcium than a banana for the same calories and sugar content.

My point is, there is no “better” they’re just different foods.

Moralising food is what’s got us into this mess.

The most common surgery performed on kids is tooth extraction due to decay. Go figure.

Because doughnuts are delicious!! As are strawberries! As is cheese! As is a jacket potato!!

When I was a child my dad used to give us kids tubes of smarties, he was negligent. My teeth suffered as a result. Kids used to walk everywhere and not sit around on devices all day, so less obesity, but at school kids would be bringing in sweets crisps and there was a tuck shop as well,
so crap was given, but we all moved around more. Also less calorific food available elsewhere.

I don't see why you'd care frankly. I wouldn't sit on public transport staring at children and judging their parents on what they're putting in their mouths.

Unless I was literally a paediatric nutritionist or feeding specialist whose job it was to tell people what to feed their children. Even then I would know you're seeing them for 10 minutes in their lives so can't judge their diet on one bus journey snack.

There are children in horrific poverty, being abused, starved, trafficked all over the world so I really don't have the inclination to be concerned that a child ate five 'squashy' sweets.

Surely those are better than hard boiled sweets as those take longer to eat so the sugar coats the teeth more?

A lot of it is the size of these packets - fewer and fewer snacks are available in small packets, and normally only in multipacks. So if you want one packet of crisps it’s a ‘grab bag’, chocolate bars are these big double ones - so people are eating more. A mini bag of squashies would be a very reasonable treat (if a treat was needed) but they’re not so easy to get a hold of any more. ‘Big Sugar’ has a lot to answer for.

Don’t be silly. We should definitely demonised sweets and lollies, and put fruit and veg on a pedestal. If everyone in the country replaced two items of crap they eat each day with an apple and a banana the benefit to the nhs would be vast. Do I really need to copy and paste the nutritional content of more fruit and veg?

Ive only been on Mumsnet a few weeks but Ive already picked up the pattern with these type of posts. They always read kind of ok and then theres that one bait line. In this post its 'my 3yo has never had a sweet'.
My moneys on MN doing it themselves to drive engagement honestly.

Ah, the judgy mummies using one data point to push themselves up on the normal high ground. Come back in fifteen to twenty five years when your grown up children have an unhealthy relationship with food. Eating disorders and food anxiety are absolutely the fault of the parent who controls the food.