I think every day is gross.
I'm not anti fast food either. We do it in moderation.
Even if the parents don't want to or can't cook there are healthier alternatives to McD's.

My mom had me in high school and used to work at McDonald's after school. She'd always come home with a Happy Meal for dinner. On her nights off we usually ate takeout. Very rarely (less than once a week on average) did we have home cooked meals when I was younger.

I had a lot of headaches growing up and always felt lethargic. I also felt nauseous a lot. My family wrote it off as me wanting attention. I got into sports in high school and my coach was also the Health/ Phys Ed teacher. She got me off of my daily fast food diet, but I still ate it a few times a month.

Despite exercising all the time, having a low BMI and about 12% body fat, I developed a bunch of health issues in college. Food allergies, GERD and Eosinophilic esophagitis. The latter was the worst. Certain foods would trigger a complete shutdown of my esophagus wherein food would just sit there for hours. It was extremely painful and strange, as I'd wake up in the morning and cough up food that I'd eaten for dinner the night before.

Now, I eat fast food maybe once every three or four months. My diet is mostly fruits and vegetables. Very little fried foods.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes of course it is a big deal eating McDonalds, even once a week!

By the looks of it these poor kids are going to have poor nutrition, bad eating habits, going to become obese, and possibly have high cholesterol in their early years.

Eh, I ate fast food a lot when I was a kid. Never had high cholesterol or high blood pressure. I was chubby as a kid but thinned out in high school. No long term health effects whatsoever. Is it healthy? Of course not. Will it permanently affect their health? I doubt it.

You were lucky, or were u? You never know what effects it may have later on?. But if you stopped eating or cut down early on then perhaps you are right. However, for some kids...eating unhealthy develops poor eating habits which can lead well into ones adult life.

So you think I'm suddenly going to drop dead from eating fast food as a kid even though I've never had a blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. problem? You would just love that so that you can prove what a superior mother you are. Get over it. Fast food is not going to kill these kids.

not superior, just health cautious

Anonymous wrote:But you are judging my friend.

+1 HAHAHAHA

We love McDonalds! But not everyday.

Thank you 20:31. I really appreciate that you took the time to write all of that out. I wish you and your mother well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me answer honestly, as someone whose mom hit the drive-thru basically every day when she picked us up from our after-school program (though we rotated Wendy's, Burger King, and McDonald's, sometimes stopping to pick up pizza, and having donuts for breakfast-- don't know if that more varied diet changes things):

I became a vegan when I was a teenager and am an extremely healthy eater now, who is no longer strictly vegan because I've traveled a lot and love experiencing different flavors and foods. I went to Yale. I have, thankfully, not had any significant health issues and I am about a size 6 now, while breastfeeding. I've run one marathon. I never take my kids to fast food places because I just have no desire for them or craving whatsoever. I still like pizza and donuts, but I prefer palak paneer with naan or injera and doro wat if we're doing take-out.

Maybe one day I'll have huge health issues that stem from my earlier poor eating, and unfortunately, I feel sometimes like that would make a certain subset of people happy: the people who feed their children healthy food OBSESSIVELY and reassure themselves, when the children of others have serious health issues and diseases, that they must have done something unhealthy to cause it.

*It's okay to judge, but we were not wealthy and both my parents worked full-time and overtime and didn't enjoy cooking when they had time to spend with us, and they also weren't at all well-educated about nutrition-- now that they know better I know they regret feeding us so poorly, but I'll never judge them for it myself. We had a good run of it, McDonald's and I!

I'm impressed how you managed to weave in the name of your school, a completely irrelevant fact. Nicely done, PP.

Stop being jealous, PP. She mentioned it because a lot of idiots on this site claim that junk food/soda kills brain cells.

I can answer this question with good old BTDT experience. I grew up with a young, single mom who worked very hard to make up for dropping out of college by working her way up through her company. She also never had an interest (and this continues today) in cooking. None whatsoever. So, I ate a chicken nuggets happy meal and eventually a chicken nuggets adult meal every night for dinner. In fairness, sometimes we would branch out with Wendy's and sometimes Friendly's (always chicken nuggets/fingers). Sometimes I would eat a home-cooked meal at my grandparent's house (maybe once every couple of weeks). Lunch was purchased at school. Pretty sure I didn't eat breakfast, and if I did, it was sugary cereal. This was my life elementary school through high school, although we had added arby's and burger king to the mix by high school. Oh, and I shouldn't leave out Fuddruckers. Needless to say, not healthy.

I don't know why, but I was never fat. I should have been, but I wasn't. As a teenager, I never had a flat stomach and was self-conscious about my body, but I look at pictures and I was slim with a cute figure. I started running for fun my junior year of high school. I excelled in the classroom (salutatorian of my class), had plenty of friends, and was generally pretty happy. I also had perfect attendance from seventh grade through high school graduation.

Fast forward to now, I am 35, 5'4", and generally between 125 and 130 when not pregnant. I have taught myself to cook, to make healthy choices, to enjoy exercising (running and yoga, mostly). I still have a crazy sweet tooth and enjoy terrible food from time to time (especially when pregnant). My feet are bigger than is typical for my height, so I think my diet might have prevented me from reaching my full height (which my mom hates when I say this to her), but otherwise, I am aware of no long-term ill-effects FOR ME from my mom's food choices.

For her, it's another story all together. Although I changed my habits when I left her house and although her haunts started to include sit-down chain restaurants, she carried on largely as she had my whole life. Once she quit smoking when I was in middle school (and she was in her early 30s), her weight ballooned. With some thin periods here and there, she was obese most of her adult life. She eventually developed diabetes, the symptoms of which she ignored. At 54, she had a massive stroke that has left her without sight in one eye, unable to speak, difficulty spontaneously writing more than a few letters of a word, and completely dependent on others to be able to live the "independent life" she has now.

So, my experience suggests that there is hope for the family, especially the kids. As for the parents, I hope that they are making choices elsewhere in their lives that minimize the chance that they'll end up like my mom.

No, some of YOU need to relax. I'm not the poster/s arguing with anyone. I only just posted the "thank you" at 20:09. Clearly, I know that McDonald's here and there isn't going to hurt anyone. That's not even close to the point of my original inquiry.

Some of you have bigger problems than you accuse me of having.

Anonymous wrote:Let me answer honestly, as someone whose mom hit the drive-thru basically every day when she picked us up from our after-school program (though we rotated Wendy's, Burger King, and McDonald's, sometimes stopping to pick up pizza, and having donuts for breakfast-- don't know if that more varied diet changes things):

I became a vegan when I was a teenager and am an extremely healthy eater now, who is no longer strictly vegan because I've traveled a lot and love experiencing different flavors and foods. I went to Yale. I have, thankfully, not had any significant health issues and I am about a size 6 now, while breastfeeding. I've run one marathon. I never take my kids to fast food places because I just have no desire for them or craving whatsoever. I still like pizza and donuts, but I prefer palak paneer with naan or injera and doro wat if we're doing take-out.

Maybe one day I'll have huge health issues that stem from my earlier poor eating, and unfortunately, I feel sometimes like that would make a certain subset of people happy: the people who feed their children healthy food OBSESSIVELY and reassure themselves, when the children of others have serious health issues and diseases, that they must have done something unhealthy to cause it.

*It's okay to judge, but we were not wealthy and both my parents worked full-time and overtime and didn't enjoy cooking when they had time to spend with us, and they also weren't at all well-educated about nutrition-- now that they know better I know they regret feeding us so poorly, but I'll never judge them for it myself. We had a good run of it, McDonald's and I!

I'm impressed how you managed to weave in the name of your school, a completely irrelevant fact. Nicely done, PP.

Oh god it's one meal a day. We do McDonalds for lunch..a lot. Kids get the McNuggets and fries with apples and milk and they usually have 2 of the nuggets and eat half the fries if reg size and all if the kiddie size. Breakfast is healthy as is dinner and snacks (I don't buy junk food items as I save the junk for when we are out) but sometimes I need a drive by to get everything done. My mom used to do this and I wasn't fat--there was no drama to it so I wasn't obsessed with food. OP needs to relax.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes of course it is a big deal eating McDonalds, even once a week!

By the looks of it these poor kids are going to have poor nutrition, bad eating habits, going to become obese, and possibly have high cholesterol in their early years.

Eh, I ate fast food a lot when I was a kid. Never had high cholesterol or high blood pressure. I was chubby as a kid but thinned out in high school. No long term health effects whatsoever. Is it healthy? Of course not. Will it permanently affect their health? I doubt it.

You were lucky, or were u? You never know what effects it may have later on?. But if you stopped eating or cut down early on then perhaps you are right. However, for some kids...eating unhealthy develops poor eating habits which can lead well into ones adult life.

So you think I'm suddenly going to drop dead from eating fast food as a kid even though I've never had a blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. problem? You would just love that so that you can prove what a superior mother you are. Get over it. Fast food is not going to kill these kids.

The dad appears to be overweight and the mom seems to be average to thin.

Thank you to all of the posters who answered the original question without going off the deep end.

OP -- what do the parents look like? I imagine that is a better reflection/insight into the future that you can expect for the kids. If the parents are obese and still visiting mcdonalds daily, you can probably guess that healthy eating and exercise isn't a high priority in the family. If the parents look normal, you could guess that the kids are getting the less unhealthy options and probably getting a lot of exercise and (hopefully) decent meals other times of the day.

Sure, you can't tell all about their health from their outsides (skinny people die of heart attacks and high cholesterol too), but hey, since we are speculating and judging here why not keep right at it ...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes of course it is a big deal eating McDonalds, even once a week!

By the looks of it these poor kids are going to have poor nutrition, bad eating habits, going to become obese, and possibly have high cholesterol in their early years.

Eh, I ate fast food a lot when I was a kid. Never had high cholesterol or high blood pressure. I was chubby as a kid but thinned out in high school. No long term health effects whatsoever. Is it healthy? Of course not. Will it permanently affect their health? I doubt it.

You were lucky, or were u? You never know what effects it may have later on?. But if you stopped eating or cut down early on then perhaps you are right. However, for some kids...eating unhealthy develops poor eating habits which can lead well into ones adult life.

As a kid, we ate McD at least once a week. My whole family is very thin with no health problems whatsoever. A McD hamburger + small fries is really not that big a deal. My kids eat McD a couple times a month, and I am not concerned in the least about them becoming overweight or developing poor eating habits. Not gonna happen.