to think we need to stop using what we feed our children as the main measure for our parenting skills

[jumpyjan]

I am so fed up with the constant discussion in the media over what we feed our children and have heard some extremelly annoying self rightous people on phone ins regarding the latest packed lunch story today.

Whilst I strongly believe in a healthy diet and believe children behave better when they eat well etc I resent the government constantly telling us how to parent and the way that people seem to measure how good a parent you are on the sole basis of what you feed your child. A childs nutrition is of course extremelly important but it is one element of parenting.

It seems like parents who feed their children certain foods are looked down upon while some parents who feed their children healthy foods expect a pat on the back. It just seems like snobbery to me.

Why can't we make our own decisions about what to feed our children without feeling the need to feel smug/ashamed about it.

I agree with your posts Jumpyjan. I loathe the way that we are being nannied by the state and believe wholeheartedly that it should be the parents who decide what children eat and not the schools government.

However, I can see that there are concerns about lunchboxes, but I think you still have to respect the parents' choices. The tricky thing is getting parents to make the best choices.

All my kids have school lunches, partly because I am not organised enough for packed lunches, and partly because of bad childhood memories of packed lunches. I think you have to work really hard to make packed lunches both interesting and balanced (only 5% manage it, apparently and they are probably all on mumsnet.

However, with eating in general, I think we give in too much to 'kids food' (chicken nuggets etc), when kids are quite capable of eating adult food if that's all you serve to them. Kids know exactly what buttons to press and I think food is one of the most effective ones, whether it is insisting on one thing, eating nothing or throwing it around. I think as parents we all react to it.

I think one of the things that is really nice about having teenagers is when they start to choose salad for themselves.

I think our kids eat a shocking load of old shite and it should be treated as an emergency.

I'm glad it's being pointed out because it's not fair to feed them all this crap and set them up for health problems later on.

Parents need to get a grip and cook proper food.

YABU

The UK has the highest rate of childhood obesity in the world after the States.

Being fat is not nice - it is a key contributory factor in strokes, heart disease and cancer.

It astounds me and sickens me that children are fed such crap. Parents clearly have no idea of basic nutition....

State needs to step in, and parents need to get a grip and start providing proper balanced meals.

I agree with pisces that food is a joy. All this preaching about healthy v. unhealthy food takes the fun right out of eating.

Then again, whilst my dcs, despite eating treats alongside 'heathy food', are slim and active, young people these days are quite large. So something needs to be done, even if it is mildly annoying to me.

It's a mumsnet obsession from day one. From day one on here there is the obsession with bf, then the weaning. When Dcs were babies weaning was fun and nothing to be scared of. I don't know anyone who struggled with weaning, now due to certain scaremongers on the weaning boards it is now seen as "hard" to quote a post today.

Parenting is so much more than what you feed your dc.
My mother was a working mum who didn't have time to cook in the evening, although at weekends she cooked lovely meals, but she is the most fantastic mum I could ever ask for.

I give my dc a mix of everything somedays it may be shop bought lasagne, others its completely homemade although I do usually make sure they have fresh vegetables.
They are both perfect weight for their height and most of the time healthy so I am not worried if they have "unhealthy" treats.

There is the old saying "a little of what you fancy does you good" It's all about balance!

YANBU

I was just thinking this when I caught an episode of Lazy Town and his "sports candy" FFS

Bruffin, unhealthy treats are fine - when given once a week. But having unheathy food every day is not really fine for a lot of kids, especially those who are not active.

I think it is everyone who needs to get the healthy eating message, Spidermama. DC follow by example and they need to eat the same as the parents. Parents who make their DCs drink water and drink coke themselves are going to lose.
It is just a question of cooking from basics and cutting out most processed foods. You can do a lot with disguise! You can put all sorts of vegetables into soup or bolognese sauce and they never know!
Cut out most processed food.
Give proper portion sizes.
Cut out snacks.
Get plenty of exercise.

When I was on holiday in Cornwall in the summer there were whole families on the beach who were all vastly overweight. I have never got over the fact that you could have pizza with chips!

It is a huge mistake to label food 'good' or 'bad'. Cutting out all sweets gives them a craving for them. The odd biscuit doesn't harm! Just have it in moderation and don't graze all day!

It's a cliche but it's true: Parents and children should all sit round the table together eating the same thing. Mine do. It's not hard.

We are in danger of having a generation of kids obsessed with food, resulting in eating disorders (one way or another) or health issues...scurvy etc.

Most of all it's another way to make children feel got at, something else for them to stress about.

We ate loads of "crap" in the seventies but weren't overweight so i'm thinking either:
the 'crap' we ate was homemade and therefore healthier anyway i.e. chips in deep fat fryer and egg and 'cheap' beefburgers were still healthier than processed food and takeaways (didn't have many in those days)
or
we just exercised more (but we didn't call it that) - we walked dogs and ran round woods.

Surely the 99% of unhealthy lunchboxes were not measured against 'normal' healthy but 'Jamie Oliver' healthy.

But what's a typical lunchbox?

Sandwich (probably white bread, and probably no salad).

Crisps of some description

Chocolate biscuit

Yoghurt

Small piece of fruit, or fruit sweets.

Squash.

The chocolate biscuit, crisps and sweets in it every day will qualify it as unhealthy.

And a big problem is that kids will often eat these first and leave the good stuff till last, or bin it.

Othersideofthechannel - I absolutely do think that people use what a child is fed as a main measure of how good a parent they/others are. There are threads on here all the time to that effect - including one today!

Porcasmiseria - the government campaign is aimed at anyone who dares to put a chocolate biscuit or packet of crisps into their childs pack lunch box - whether they are a mumsnetter or not! I think it is outrageous that childrens lunch boxes are checked at all. Also to say if it annoys you turn it off - if only - the Government message gets everywhere all of the time - it is hard to avoid.

The overweight/health problems issue that many of you have mentioned is, I believe as much down to excercise as anything else. I don't see the government doing anything proactive in this area - its first response always seems to be lets do a campaign telling parents what they can and can't do.

MistleSnail - think from what the BBC news said they were measured properly taking into account the balance of various food groups in the meals looked at. I haven't seen the study it is based on but I doubt they will have considered all the factors in their research as it is often impossible to study complex human behaviour/health issues. I just despair that despite this and the fact that fat is an important part of a child's diet they still push the message fruit/veg healthy (will make you thin) and chocolate unhealthy (will make you fat) - wrong in so, so many ways and guaranteed to give a child an unhealthy/incorrect understanding of food. I think children now do not exercise anything like as much as they used to. The difference between now and when I went to school is great even and I am 25. I think the Government wants both parents to work (and pay tax), they don't want to run public transport properly so it can be used for regular journeys and they virtually incentivise driving (I suspect for the taxation income). I find, given that I don't drive, I am being discriminated against by a lot of modern policy - i.e. the specialisation of services within the NHS which basically means getting rid of small local primary care services in favour of big regional centres. The bus to my 'local' rural hospital takes an hour and a half and crosses a county boundary there used to be services provided in the hospital a 10 minute bus ride away in my large town . This discriminates against me because I don't drive and therefore have little access to some basic healthcare for myself and paediatric care for my DCs.

Anyway, I'm going off topic. People drive children (and themselves) around everywhere too much now and so they get very little exercise in comparison with what used to be normal. I get sick of hearing children complaining about tired legs and adults exclaiming "Your children will walk all that way?! Don't they get tired?!" about what I would consider to be a very normal walk.

Yes, something should be done for the sake of public health but not taking chocolate out of lunchboxes and telling kids they'll get fat and die if they eat it.

YANBU
starts with the BFing obsession, moves on to the great war between BLW supporters vs. Annabel Karmel's fans and then we see the government sticking their noses into the children's packed lunches.

jumpyjan - the Government are just implementing the exercise part equally stupidly. The schemes I have seen in DS' primary school are a cycle to school week and a walking bus week - you are supposed to drive your children to the meet up point and then the teachers take them to school... excellent, that'll really impact on their health when they spend the other 50 weeks a year (and journey home) in the car(!)

I think the trick is living a healthier lifestyle not gimmicks and attempts at direct social control. Subversive social control would be better e.g. raising the driving age to 21, providing under 21s with subsidised public transport, teaching comprehensively in schools about healthy lifestyle, educating teachers (politicians and policy makers) and dinner ladies so that they actually understand nutrition and biology e.t.c.

Sport in school would be good

Do they seriously check lunchboxes? That is so intrusive - It is so offensive to parents who actually have a brain and use it.

It's new year. TV likes to make lots of documentaries about fat people in the new year.It'll all be over by the end of the month.

I would take a dim view of a TV company going in and filming my DC's lunch box when the weather has been so bad that I have had to make do with my, very limited,local shop-one that has been out of all fruit and veg for days!

I don't think this story has arisen out of a national snapshot taken during this weather.

Does anyone disagree with the notion that most (not all) packed lunches include a packet of crisps and biscuit every day?

Couldn't agree more. I was eating out with my kids and some right-on "we eat so perfectly" brigade members recently. Gave my kids a packet of crisps and you'd have thought I was handing them heroin. One ma literally didn't speak to me for the rest of the day.
Is total snobbery and am sure will lead to a generation of middle class kids with raging eating disorders.

YANBU

there is so much food snobbery around these days. Whatever happened to balanced diets. Children should get sweets but should also eat fruit,veg, meat, cereals etc etc. A fruit shoot isnt going to kill you (allergies aside) as long as it not a main drink.

Perhaps more emphasis should be put on a active lifestyle rather than plonking kids down with computer games. As DH says, there is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothes and our DC are nearly outside every day playing