Smug fruit shoot feeders - don't you ever worry about 20 years down the line?

[welliemum]

Lots of people here talk about feeding their dcs crap food as a badge of honour - it's a weird kind of street cred.

"My kinds eat junk food - so shoot me, ha ha"
[subtext: I am a laid-back cool person and people who fuss about junk food are so up their own bums it's unbelievable]

But.... there's a big worry out there about obesity, about additives in food, about the way bad eating habits often have their beginnings in childhood...... and the concerns are likely to get stronger with time.

Don't you ever worry that 20 years from now when times have moved on, one of your dcs will read your light hearted comments and actually feel a bit that you seemed so proud of feeding them crap?

Whereas what I'd hope for with mine is to be able to say, "Well, you did sometimes eat rubbish at parties and I wasn't all that happy about it, but I let you because I didn't want you to feel left out. I didn't stress about it too much because I knew you ate well the rest of the time."

[subtext: I was never a perfect parent but I did my best to find the balance between feeding you well and not being obsessional about food].

oh really?

I don't ever use food as a 'reward' or treat.

Bollocks to that.

It's like handing your child a weight problem on a plate.

Besides, who needs food as a 'treat' when the world is full of shoes and makeup?

Surely it's about everything in moderation fgs !

don;t know if it is a badge of honour, more like, 'i'll say i know it is bad before i am vilified'

i'm hoping that in 20 years times, my kids will have a healthy attitude to food, they may eat junk ocasionally have the odd soft drink etc, but i;d say a lot of the time, they eat healthily and eat more than their 5-a-day each day.

Aspartame's rank, though.

Honestly, why not sugar? Why the artificial sweetners?

They're all clarty.

DD1 has a fizzy drink every now and again. Usually IrnBru. Just no aspartame cuz it's boakatastic.

Today she had McDonald's french fries for lunch.

I can think of far more damaging comments for children to read than "I give my child 5 fruit shoots a day and I'm proud of it".

When adults, your kids will villify you and blame you for everything that is negative in their lives.

That's their job.

No, I don't agree with "Everything in moderation" necessarily.

To pick a ridiculous example, I don't fancy the idea of heroin in moderation for my dcs.

There's no rule to say a child MUST eat junk food.

In reality, they have to eat junk food because if they don't, they'd be socially isolated and that would be cruel.

But they only have to eat junk food because everyone else is. If no-one was eating additive laden rubbish, they would never miss it and never need it.

Dare I say that it's a lazy option to give your child crap?

[PP hides in the back of the broom cupboard before she gets hounded off mn]

Oh yes, I know that when they're grown up I'll be told I did EVERYTHING wrong. I'm not doing what I do to get their approval.

But rather get it all wrong whilst making an effort to get it right, iyswim?

true Huw.....

if you did the lentil weaver extreme, you know, knit your own muesli, sort of thing, or 5 happy meals a week extreme..kids will have food ishoooos...a balance, a moderate approach, and a knowledge about food..where it comes from , how to cook, what is nutritious and what is not so nutritious is going to stand them in good stead....

extremes are bad in anything...IMHO

teaching them about nutrition rather than dividing food into good/bad and using it as a reward is ok, no? then the odd fizzy drink, froot shoot, whatever is taken in context.

no. are you that your parents allowed you to have junk food when you were a child? because junk food isn't a new invention ya know. anyone eat sugar sandwiches as a child? gobstoppers? sugar mice? those penny chews in the shops - fruit salads were they? No there may not have been the additives, but there was certainly the sugar. the only thing that's changed is the fact that there's now a label on the packet to "warn" the parents of the crap they're feeding their child.

Obesity does have some of its origin in junk food, but that's more to do with processed food that we call meals (mcDonalds, ready meals etc) but the fact the majority of our children spend less time walking and more time in cars, and more time in front of computers/tv/videogames than outside actually playing also plays a huge part IMO.

welliemum, do you think that us 'crap food badge of honour' mums DONT worry about obesity? Why is it all so black and white? My children eat a healthy balanced diet and have never had a fruit shoot in their lives but I'm sure they will. And when they do, I wont beat myself up about it or feel like publicly flogging the parent that gave it to them.

Imo, there is a difference between making sure your dc have a good diet and being up your own arse. Sometimes people cross that line.

But how many meals do your children eat per week that you're not responsible for? I bet it's one at most (unless they're having school dinners which are all healthy now anyway, aren't they?). So therefore if they drank one Fruit Shoot and ate crisps and sweets once a week at a party (what a great social life) would tha be so bad when weighed against the huge amount of food and drink provided by you? Really?

I'm not a "smug fruit shoot feeder" but I really can't get worked up about the volumes involved here.

Totally agree welliemum.

And ds does occassionally eat 'junk' (such as yesterday at a party).

Do you have any idea how self-righteous you sound?

This is going to kick off, isnt it?

you sounds so unbeliveably ruuuuuuuuude!

[walks off muttering and cleans the fruit shoot bottles away]

I'm very relaxed about food as a whole and the children have a wonderful attidude to it as a result. No sweet teeth and big and varied veggie and fruit eating. But have never fussed over the odd (mostly homemade) biscuits/cakes etc.

However I am fanatical about no artificial sweeteners and no transfatty acids. It is about how you view the risks of certain food types - and these is just too much research now linking these with poor health outcomes to be lax about them IMO.

Well said LuLu! Am not sure how everything in moderation is a suggestion that heroin for a child would be ok More of a child knowing what a balanced diet is but not depriving them of the odd mcdonalds etc.

I ate a mountain of tartrazine as a child.

I also spent every party wheezing from the preservatives in squash.

But we ate well at home and that's the point - I know my parents made an effort to get us to appreciate good food, whilst keeping the junk within reasonable limits, and I think that was a brilliant thing they did for us.

Yeah, because beef and wheatflour are exactly the same as heroin, aren't they

There is evidence that children deprived of sweets are more likely to binge on them in later life, actually.