Gwyneth Paltrow and avoiding carbs for kids - what do you think?

[JaneGMumsnet]

Hi,

You may have read news stories today about Gwynneth Paltrow avoiding carbs for the whole family, including her children aged eight and six:

"Sometimes when my family is not eating pasta, bread or processed grains like white rice, we're left with that specific hunger that comes with avoiding carbs."

We'd be interested to hear what you think about this story.

Does your own diet influence the way you feed your children?

Thanks,

MNHQ

I think GP is entitled to feed her kids however she wishes... but should not be surprised to discover in due course that her kids are also entitled to seek out friends with homes where they can snaffle a Mothers Pride sandwich and bar of choc. :)

You can be sure they will Cognito If ever they get the chance!

I suspect they are so regulated that there will be little chance until they get to teenage and break free in a spectacular way!

I have some friends who went the GP route of wholesome food for their 3 DCs... no problem there. But I won't forget the day they pitched up at a little party round mine and all three stood round a pretty big bowl of crisps shovelling handfuls into their mouths until it was gone. Not sure that was quite what my friends intended.

I find it astonishing. The woman has given herself a serious illness (pre onset osteoporosis but I can't remember what the specific condition is called) through her approach to eating and exercise, and she still thinks it is OK to push her food weirdness on her children and other people. Why would anyone listen to her???

These are the parents who hired a night nanny to sleep train their babies from birth (they cried it out basically) so that prejudices me quite deeply against them.

Yes, most replies on the thread illustrate why 60% of people in the UK are over weight, diabetes is out of control and depression rates are high and people will die younger than their parents because they eat junk.

On this "But I do think it' says a lot about our fucked-up relationship with food in this country that she's being called a nutter and a stupid bint for cutting out nutritionally void foods from her kids' diets. " Absolutely. Many children eat a very healthy diet with lots of fat, protein, fish, eggs, veg without of course ever being hungry and without eating the junk food mentioned by so many as some how essential on this thread.

She a pain in the arse for going on about it. No one likes a holier than thou attitude.

To be honest, expert advice on a healthy diet changes all the time. I think you're likely to do more damage to yourself stressing over it than just getting on with eating what you feel like (and enjoying what you eat). I'd only regret it if I spent my life panicking about what kind of carbs I feed my children (and it wouldn't necessarily prevent them from getting ill anyway).

In any case, medical advice for us is that my 3yo isn't to have high-fibre, wholegrain foods. It gives him the squits.

Xenia
I think you are wrong here.
A healthy balanced diet is the best way to achieve long term health. As a nation we eat too much and too many processed foods.
Gwyneth Paltrow is not advocating a balanced approach, she is advocating an extreme and she seems to switch from extremes to extremes, which is is no way a healthy approach to eating.
I think its interesting that a lot of posters in support of her way of eating comment on how they have lost X amount of weight so clearly they had not been balanced before or would not have had that weight to lose.

Yes, Arbitrary - too much wholegrain for my 3 yr old does not agree with him at all.

But, I mix white, wild and brown rice (majority white tbh) and the kids eat this happily once a week. Makes the more expensive wild and brown last much longer.

Tea You're are obv uber correct re 'White flour and sugar are not food groups'. Ditto I UTTERLY agree 'Low (not no) carb is an eminently sensible - and delicious - way to eat' (& frankly wish a few more did when you walk down the average High St...). BUT.... Unless she has been massively mis-quoted (which seriously doubt as known for being Media litigious; and also I think it's a direct 'lift' from the book/book's blurb), that isn't what she said had cut out &/or her DC's never have? Said:

"Sometimes when my family is not eating pasta, bread OR processed grains like white rice, we're left with that specific hunger that comes with avoiding carbs.

Think it's the very absolute statement of 'avoiding carbs' (IE de facto including the complex healthier carbs too) and that acknowledges DC's are left with 'that specific hunger' that has so many people here a bit . Esp. given it's so bleedin obvious that all DCs food intake % 'split' across food groups is SO different to that which adults require (most adults NOT being still growing - apart from in girth in some cases - and NOT having the same amount of very physical energy needed and expended by l'il bods).

My mother was and is into healthy eating. As a child, dinner might be aduki bean stew with brown rice, and carob chips and almonds for dessert. It left me feeling quite deprived and prone to secret binges on sugary food. I'm better about it these days - except when my mother comes to stay and tut-tuts disapprovingly at everything I put in my mouth....

I daresay her children are eating healthier than mine, but what gets me is that she has that attitude that many entitled privileged people have which is that 'you civvies could all be like me if you just worked a little harder', without acknowledging just how much their lives have benefitted from the very start from good fortune. She is the good looking daughter of rich, successful, famous parents whose first break was from her godfather Steven Spielberg who is now married to a stonkingly rich musician. Yet I'm sure she believes that she's where she is from hard work. You know those children of famous people who say things like 'I'd never do a job I didn't believe in' with no concept of the reality for the vast majority of the world.
And it's like this with her children. By pronouncing on childrearing she seems to be implying that we could all do like her. And I feel, oh god, my children eat crap like cereals and bread because it's quick and easy and they are thin to the point of underweight and I just want them to eat something as I work have no domestic staff etc etc.
But logically I know she talks out of her toned ass about them. There was one quote about how her children are fluent in Spanish because they have a Spanish nanny so then she got a French nanny and now they're fluent in both. And I feel all inadequate because I should be teaching my kids Spanish and making them watch Spanish TV. And then I look at my friends who are native Greek/Italian/Arabic speakers and how difficult they find it to get their children fluent (i.e. in their mother tongue) and I realise that Gwynnie's grasp of reality might be a little bit looser than our own...
As I say, doesn't stop me feeling inadequate about my carb scoffing monolingual failures...

Indeed, Farewelltoarms. One might even say that GP has too few real problems to fill her day...

The thing is Bonsoir is that she saves so much time by doing her post-workout stretching exercises in the shower while her conditioner works that she has acres of free time to fill each day.

If GP is coeliac, it will be that that has given her osteoporosis if that's what she has. Coeliac disease weakens bones by preventing adequate absorption of nutrients. I'm sure nobody would advocate that she just eat some white toast to cure coeliac and mend her bones? If she were coeliac, which can be inherited, that would explain why she doesn't want to feed her children masses of gluten, surely?

Yes. She is quite hot on her multi-tasking time saving tips. Just how many nannies, housekeepers and chauffeurs does she have? Trainers, hairdressers, beauticians, tutors, dermatologists, decorators?

Pfff.

Bonsoir But if only we all just tried that bit harder we could be the same as GP. Its our fault for not being high enough achievers.

You are quite right. If I am not perfect in every single way I should self-flagellate and read Gwynnie to incite myself into yet more striving.

A life without pasta, risotto, pilau rice, croissants, the perfect bacon sandwich...is not a life I wish to live, nor one which I wish to pass on to my DC.

Food is central to being human. It's who we are. It matters.

Humans have know this since the dawn of time. In every corner of the globe.

Carbohydrates are part and parcel of this.

And pizza, wordfactory. I love pizza...

Yep. I love a four seasons pizza.

I also love paella, and a big hunk of baguette to mop up the sauce in my moules, and rice noodles in a big bowl of spicey broth, and roast potatoes...

The trick as ever, is just not to eat too many carbs. And cut them out when a bikini beacons, no?

I eat loads of carbs - they are my favourite food group! And I don't diet either. But I do burn a ton of energy. Carbs are what keep me going!