Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised no one has asked this but what’s the context for your kids seeing your parents 5x a week at their house it sounds like? Are they providing childcare for you for free? If so, while I still think they are being weird in terms of trying to almost force the kids to have junk, it becomes a lot harder to take a stand when they are your free afterschool childcare.

I think your DH sounds a little uptight and extreme about these issues but at the same time I wouldn’t want my parents playing my kids with soda when the kids don’t even seem to be asking for it.

+1

I’m surprised no one has asked this but what’s the context for your kids seeing your parents 5x a week at their house it sounds like? Are they providing childcare for you for free? If so, while I still think they are being weird in terms of trying to almost force the kids to have junk, it becomes a lot harder to take a stand when they are your free afterschool childcare.

I think your DH sounds a little uptight and extreme about these issues but at the same time I wouldn’t want my parents playing my kids with soda when the kids don’t even seem to be asking for it.

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Anonymous wrote:DH is not unreasonable to want change. PP misrepresents what grandparents are doing and how often. Big difference between junk food all the time and once or twice a month...

I have older kids and the cultural around junk food is HUGE. It’s daily from school - at a minimum (school breakfast). Then add in school parties, teacher rewards, kids sending in birthday treats, parents sending in treats for sports practice or games, weekend get togethers, parties or day trips usually involve desserts and such. Now add in grandparents frequently buying treats and soda at restaurants. That is a LOT of junk and that’s without a parent even keeping it at home. Literally no kid is deprived of junk food these days, regardless of what parents don’t buy

Older than what? Mine are in their 20s, and despite a youthful love of Froot Loops (which I did not buy for them, but did let them eat if the opportunity presented itself), they are now all healthy eaters. Not because I nagged them, but because they figured it out.

Then maybe you shouldn’t comment bc you don’t have school age kids anymore. The junk food bombardment is extremely pervasive now-including in schools, where they do in fact, provide Fruit Loops, Cocoa Puffs, and chocolate muffins daily, on top or a myriad of other junk. And that’s just at school.

UH, actually they seem the perfect person to weigh-in, given all the accusations that OP's poor abused children are all going to develop eating disorders and/or be obese because they're subjected to rigid healthy eating rules in earlier childhood. PP's been there and is telling you how it turned out in adulthood for her kids.

No, she basically said she let her kids have fruit loops once in a while and her kids are fine. But kids now are given much more junk food than ever before, by people other than their parents. Including OPs kid who sounds like goes to public school where kids all are given a “free” junk food breakfast (didn’t have that when PPs kids were young) and the sports snacks/treats have exploded. Plus OPs grandparents are giving them treats 5+ times per week.

Unless you were raising kids 20 years ago, you don't know how pervasive junk food was then (very, in case you actually want to know). Everything you mention was around then, possibly even junkier and more frequent.

Yeah, I was around then. And no- it’s worse now. If you aren’t raising kids now you have no idea

Around then, OK. Were you raising kids then? And also now? Like, for 20 years?

NP but hi! Oldest kid is 26, youngest is 11 (yeah, whatever - this is how it worked out) and what I see is junk food was way more prolific and unavoidable THEN as compared to now.

Is your youngest at a public school that gives out free breakfast and lunch to all? Are they in organized sports? These alone are vastly different than even 10 yrs ago, i.e., lots of junk. It isn’t that school food used to be healthy- but now they actively give out junk food, for free, to all kids multiple times per day. And youth sports used to be you got orange slices and water after game days. That was it. Now the snack sign up is insane. It’s like a competition of who can send in the “best” snacks and it isn’t limited game days. Parents are constantly sending in junk snacks, decorated cookies, you name it. Look at statistics. Kids are more overweight/obese than ever before. They are definitely getting fed more junk and processed foods now and moving less, than ever before

You wrote the following so it sounds like you support him in this. I'm not clear why you are asking about it if you act as though you agree in daily life.

In general, I think your DH is normal and that the corporate world wants to fill us with corn and then blame us for being sick. Look at the aisle of chips in any store. Most at Trader Joe's contain corn. It's all cheap cruddy "food."


"Both sets of our parents drive us crazy, especially with the juice and dessert, but so does the school meals. Even if we feed our kids breakfast, school is always giving them a free honey bun on their way in the door."

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Anonymous wrote:DH is not unreasonable to want change. PP misrepresents what grandparents are doing and how often. Big difference between junk food all the time and once or twice a month...

I have older kids and the cultural around junk food is HUGE. It’s daily from school - at a minimum (school breakfast). Then add in school parties, teacher rewards, kids sending in birthday treats, parents sending in treats for sports practice or games, weekend get togethers, parties or day trips usually involve desserts and such. Now add in grandparents frequently buying treats and soda at restaurants. That is a LOT of junk and that’s without a parent even keeping it at home. Literally no kid is deprived of junk food these days, regardless of what parents don’t buy

Older than what? Mine are in their 20s, and despite a youthful love of Froot Loops (which I did not buy for them, but did let them eat if the opportunity presented itself), they are now all healthy eaters. Not because I nagged them, but because they figured it out.

Then maybe you shouldn’t comment bc you don’t have school age kids anymore. The junk food bombardment is extremely pervasive now-including in schools, where they do in fact, provide Fruit Loops, Cocoa Puffs, and chocolate muffins daily, on top or a myriad of other junk. And that’s just at school.

UH, actually they seem the perfect person to weigh-in, given all the accusations that OP's poor abused children are all going to develop eating disorders and/or be obese because they're subjected to rigid healthy eating rules in earlier childhood. PP's been there and is telling you how it turned out in adulthood for her kids.

No, she basically said she let her kids have fruit loops once in a while and her kids are fine. But kids now are given much more junk food than ever before, by people other than their parents. Including OPs kid who sounds like goes to public school where kids all are given a “free” junk food breakfast (didn’t have that when PPs kids were young) and the sports snacks/treats have exploded. Plus OPs grandparents are giving them treats 5+ times per week.

Unless you were raising kids 20 years ago, you don't know how pervasive junk food was then (very, in case you actually want to know). Everything you mention was around then, possibly even junkier and more frequent.

Yeah, I was around then. And no- it’s worse now. If you aren’t raising kids now you have no idea

Around then, OK. Were you raising kids then? And also now? Like, for 20 years?

NP but hi! Oldest kid is 26, youngest is 11 (yeah, whatever - this is how it worked out) and what I see is junk food was way more prolific and unavoidable THEN as compared to now.

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Anonymous wrote:DH is not unreasonable to want change. PP misrepresents what grandparents are doing and how often. Big difference between junk food all the time and once or twice a month...

I have older kids and the cultural around junk food is HUGE. It’s daily from school - at a minimum (school breakfast). Then add in school parties, teacher rewards, kids sending in birthday treats, parents sending in treats for sports practice or games, weekend get togethers, parties or day trips usually involve desserts and such. Now add in grandparents frequently buying treats and soda at restaurants. That is a LOT of junk and that’s without a parent even keeping it at home. Literally no kid is deprived of junk food these days, regardless of what parents don’t buy

Older than what? Mine are in their 20s, and despite a youthful love of Froot Loops (which I did not buy for them, but did let them eat if the opportunity presented itself), they are now all healthy eaters. Not because I nagged them, but because they figured it out.

Then maybe you shouldn’t comment bc you don’t have school age kids anymore. The junk food bombardment is extremely pervasive now-including in schools, where they do in fact, provide Fruit Loops, Cocoa Puffs, and chocolate muffins daily, on top or a myriad of other junk. And that’s just at school.

UH, actually they seem the perfect person to weigh-in, given all the accusations that OP's poor abused children are all going to develop eating disorders and/or be obese because they're subjected to rigid healthy eating rules in earlier childhood. PP's been there and is telling you how it turned out in adulthood for her kids.

No, she basically said she let her kids have fruit loops once in a while and her kids are fine. But kids now are given much more junk food than ever before, by people other than their parents. Including OPs kid who sounds like goes to public school where kids all are given a “free” junk food breakfast (didn’t have that when PPs kids were young) and the sports snacks/treats have exploded. Plus OPs grandparents are giving them treats 5+ times per week.

Unless you were raising kids 20 years ago, you don't know how pervasive junk food was then (very, in case you actually want to know). Everything you mention was around then, possibly even junkier and more frequent.

Yeah, I was around then. And no- it’s worse now. If you aren’t raising kids now you have no idea

Around then, OK. Were you raising kids then? And also now? Like, for 20 years?

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Anonymous wrote:DH is not unreasonable to want change. PP misrepresents what grandparents are doing and how often. Big difference between junk food all the time and once or twice a month...

I have older kids and the cultural around junk food is HUGE. It’s daily from school - at a minimum (school breakfast). Then add in school parties, teacher rewards, kids sending in birthday treats, parents sending in treats for sports practice or games, weekend get togethers, parties or day trips usually involve desserts and such. Now add in grandparents frequently buying treats and soda at restaurants. That is a LOT of junk and that’s without a parent even keeping it at home. Literally no kid is deprived of junk food these days, regardless of what parents don’t buy

Older than what? Mine are in their 20s, and despite a youthful love of Froot Loops (which I did not buy for them, but did let them eat if the opportunity presented itself), they are now all healthy eaters. Not because I nagged them, but because they figured it out.

Then maybe you shouldn’t comment bc you don’t have school age kids anymore. The junk food bombardment is extremely pervasive now-including in schools, where they do in fact, provide Fruit Loops, Cocoa Puffs, and chocolate muffins daily, on top or a myriad of other junk. And that’s just at school.

UH, actually they seem the perfect person to weigh-in, given all the accusations that OP's poor abused children are all going to develop eating disorders and/or be obese because they're subjected to rigid healthy eating rules in earlier childhood. PP's been there and is telling you how it turned out in adulthood for her kids.

No, she basically said she let her kids have fruit loops once in a while and her kids are fine. But kids now are given much more junk food than ever before, by people other than their parents. Including OPs kid who sounds like goes to public school where kids all are given a “free” junk food breakfast (didn’t have that when PPs kids were young) and the sports snacks/treats have exploded. Plus OPs grandparents are giving them treats 5+ times per week.

Unless you were raising kids 20 years ago, you don't know how pervasive junk food was then (very, in case you actually want to know). Everything you mention was around then, possibly even junkier and more frequent.

Yeah, I was around then. And no- it’s worse now. If you aren’t raising kids now you have no idea

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:DH is not unreasonable to want change. PP misrepresents what grandparents are doing and how often. Big difference between junk food all the time and once or twice a month...

I have older kids and the cultural around junk food is HUGE. It’s daily from school - at a minimum (school breakfast). Then add in school parties, teacher rewards, kids sending in birthday treats, parents sending in treats for sports practice or games, weekend get togethers, parties or day trips usually involve desserts and such. Now add in grandparents frequently buying treats and soda at restaurants. That is a LOT of junk and that’s without a parent even keeping it at home. Literally no kid is deprived of junk food these days, regardless of what parents don’t buy

Older than what? Mine are in their 20s, and despite a youthful love of Froot Loops (which I did not buy for them, but did let them eat if the opportunity presented itself), they are now all healthy eaters. Not because I nagged them, but because they figured it out.

Then maybe you shouldn’t comment bc you don’t have school age kids anymore. The junk food bombardment is extremely pervasive now-including in schools, where they do in fact, provide Fruit Loops, Cocoa Puffs, and chocolate muffins daily, on top or a myriad of other junk. And that’s just at school.

UH, actually they seem the perfect person to weigh-in, given all the accusations that OP's poor abused children are all going to develop eating disorders and/or be obese because they're subjected to rigid healthy eating rules in earlier childhood. PP's been there and is telling you how it turned out in adulthood for her kids.

No, she basically said she let her kids have fruit loops once in a while and her kids are fine. But kids now are given much more junk food than ever before, by people other than their parents. Including OPs kid who sounds like goes to public school where kids all are given a “free” junk food breakfast (didn’t have that when PPs kids were young) and the sports snacks/treats have exploded. Plus OPs grandparents are giving them treats 5+ times per week.

Unless you were raising kids 20 years ago, you don't know how pervasive junk food was then (very, in case you actually want to know). Everything you mention was around then, possibly even junkier and more frequent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH is not unreasonable to want change. PP misrepresents what grandparents are doing and how often. Big difference between junk food all the time and once or twice a month...

I have older kids and the cultural around junk food is HUGE. It’s daily from school - at a minimum (school breakfast). Then add in school parties, teacher rewards, kids sending in birthday treats, parents sending in treats for sports practice or games, weekend get togethers, parties or day trips usually involve desserts and such. Now add in grandparents frequently buying treats and soda at restaurants. That is a LOT of junk and that’s without a parent even keeping it at home. Literally no kid is deprived of junk food these days, regardless of what parents don’t buy

Older than what? Mine are in their 20s, and despite a youthful love of Froot Loops (which I did not buy for them, but did let them eat if the opportunity presented itself), they are now all healthy eaters. Not because I nagged them, but because they figured it out.

Then maybe you shouldn’t comment bc you don’t have school age kids anymore. The junk food bombardment is extremely pervasive now-including in schools, where they do in fact, provide Fruit Loops, Cocoa Puffs, and chocolate muffins daily, on top or a myriad of other junk. And that’s just at school.

UH, actually they seem the perfect person to weigh-in, given all the accusations that OP's poor abused children are all going to develop eating disorders and/or be obese because they're subjected to rigid healthy eating rules in earlier childhood. PP's been there and is telling you how it turned out in adulthood for her kids.

No, she basically said she let her kids have fruit loops once in a while and her kids are fine. But kids now are given much more junk food than ever before, by people other than their parents. Including OPs kid who sounds like goes to public school where kids all are given a “free” junk food breakfast (didn’t have that when PPs kids were young) and the sports snacks/treats have exploded. Plus OPs grandparents are giving them treats 5+ times per week.

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Anonymous wrote:Because it’s not actually about the food. It’s about control.

+1. My DH is sort of like your husband. Luckily both sets of grandparents live far away from us, so when we see them, we are usually visiting. I told him that when we are in their houses, we have to follow their rules, not ours. If their rules include dessert every night, then it's dessert every night. We can teach our kids that dessert every night isn't the best choice, but our kids also need to learn that some grandparents want to show their love to their grandchildren by giving them fun desserts/candy. We're there for a relatively short time that it doesn't matter in the overall scheme of things. Kids aren't going to become obese in this way. They *will* have problems if food becomes a control issue, as it seems it has in your house.

I sure hope dessert every night is not a "rule" unless a bowl of unadulterated fruit or yogurt with fruit or simple pudding and such are considered "desserts."
Dessert being offered? Fine. Kids should be able to say no to eating it. Perhaps not likely; but I personally would have always easily refused anything with coconut in it (German chocolate cake, for example).

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Anonymous wrote:DH is not unreasonable to want change. PP misrepresents what grandparents are doing and how often. Big difference between junk food all the time and once or twice a month...

I have older kids and the cultural around junk food is HUGE. It’s daily from school - at a minimum (school breakfast). Then add in school parties, teacher rewards, kids sending in birthday treats, parents sending in treats for sports practice or games, weekend get togethers, parties or day trips usually involve desserts and such. Now add in grandparents frequently buying treats and soda at restaurants. That is a LOT of junk and that’s without a parent even keeping it at home. Literally no kid is deprived of junk food these days, regardless of what parents don’t buy

Older than what? Mine are in their 20s, and despite a youthful love of Froot Loops (which I did not buy for them, but did let them eat if the opportunity presented itself), they are now all healthy eaters. Not because I nagged them, but because they figured it out.

Then maybe you shouldn’t comment bc you don’t have school age kids anymore. The junk food bombardment is extremely pervasive now-including in schools, where they do in fact, provide Fruit Loops, Cocoa Puffs, and chocolate muffins daily, on top or a myriad of other junk. And that’s just at school.

UH, actually they seem the perfect person to weigh-in, given all the accusations that OP's poor abused children are all going to develop eating disorders and/or be obese because they're subjected to rigid healthy eating rules in earlier childhood. PP's been there and is telling you how it turned out in adulthood for her kids.

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Anonymous wrote:Because it’s not actually about the food. It’s about control.

Disagree. It is about the food. There is so much garbage food being bombarded at kids from all directions- including school. It’s insane and makes normal parents wanting their kids to eat reasonable homemade foods seem insane. And it is never “just this once.” In our current society, kids are given garbage processed foods daily by everyone around them them- even if their parents dont

No one on this thread is against healthy food.

Everyone with healthy eating hsbits is saying it is not normal or healthy to flip out and "go berserk" over food, making the family walk on eggshells at every meal, and cutting out the grandparents over ice cream.

I suspect DH isn't flipping out and going berserk so much over the food - rather the grandparents' insistence on regularly and flagrantly defying his (and wife's?) preferences. It's not so much about the food and more about the grandparents' behavior.

Anonymous wrote:we all had kids we grew up with that came over just for the snacks that they weren’t allowed to have at home. And then they go to college. 2/3 kids I knew growing up like this are significantly overweight now. Making anything forbidden usually backfires. It’s the same thing with ipad/video game/technology free households. Those kids go over a friends house and just binge when the host kid just actually wants to physically play outside.

I don't think it's fair to generalize causation. There are lots of factors developed over the past several years that lead to being overweight.
Increase in processed foods; more sedentary lifestyles; busier lives wherein people claim they don't have time to eat better; evermore options and access to fast food; cheaper prices of fast food v "healthier" restaurants; drive everywhere and walk less; video gaming rather than going out and doing things for social activity; healthier foods in grocery stores and farmers markets being more expensive than the crap foods; etc.

It is highly unlikely that their current weight is due to their parents.

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Anonymous wrote:He sounds reasonable to me. Don’t see a problem.

.

Did you see this part at the end of OP?

"I either have to constantly be yelling at my kids not to eat my parents' food, or dh is constantly upset with the kids and I. We're around my parents a lot and they eat trash food constantly and want to "treat" the kids with trash food too. It's my fault for my parents sneaking my kids a 2nd ice cream bar or letting them drink juice and root beer."

This is a problem.

DP. Yes, it's the whole problem. DH and OP need to be talking with the parents and nobody should be yelling at the kids.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. It's interesting how divided the responses seem to be. Half the respondents think DH is reasonable and half think he's insane and we should give the kids junk food.

DH isn't actually rigid or controlling. He just doesn't buy junk food or processed food, but it's not like you have to try really hard to avoid that. Our kids aren't super interested in soda or junk food either, it's the grandparents who are really pushing it. A lot of DH's concerns stem from the health problems that my family has.

He also thinks it's important for kids to be active, but the kids think that's super fun how he goes out and throws balls, hikes, bikes, plays tag with them (they don't see it as a drill sergeant forcing pushups or making them run laps, which he doesn't do). I guess it's the same as me making sure I read to them all for 30 min a day.

Don't get me wrong, our kids have treats. Ice cream and chocolate mostly.

I think it's me with the anxiety knowing that my parents are sneaking my kids stuff behind our backs and then dh will be annoyed again. They've done it so many times, which is when dh goes berserk. Sometimes I think they do it on purpose just to piss us off. My parents won't stop. They also don't listen to us. For instance, they'll say "oh it's sugar free juice- see?" When dh and I think regular juice is better than some weird artificial sweeteners. They think we care about calories.

I'm with your husband (and to an extent, you - just not you being the one angsting over all this). Sounds like your husband is quite reasonable and your parents are not being respectful of you/his quite reasonable way of parenting. This isn't a problem about your husband. It's a problem about all the grandparents.

It really shouldn't be that complicated. Your parents in particular need to see how frequently the kids are getting bad food/treats/too much sugar in the big scheme. They also get these treats when they see your husband's parents. Your parents are acting like your kids never get to have anything unhealthy. I know it's probably easier said than done, but this sounds like you just need one conversation: this is how we do food in our house and for our kids; we're find with occasional treats such as x, y, and z; we're not fine with you sneaking these foods and trying to rationalize them to us; we'd appreciate you asking us what we prefer (sugar-free v. regular orange juice); if you can't respect the priority we place on health and a healthy lifestyle or the way we choose to raise our children, then you aren't going to be able to see your grandchildren 5x/week - just once a week, then you can load 'em up with all the junk you want (but they stay with you until the sugar rush wears off!) And please consider us as parents who would like to treat our children ourselves once in a while - but we can't if you're constantly treating them all week long.