so its thre falt you have no self control?

My kids dont eat veg unless I hide it in their food or I put it in soup but they eat lots of fruit, I have been getting them to help cook dinner that way they are more likely to eat the food.
When we go out I do let them have junk food as they dont normally get it at home. Our school dinners are fun days Mon and Fri where the kids get to eat junk the other three days they have to eat healthy food cooked from scratch. I think its sad that sometimes school dinners are the only proper meal kids get in a day.
Mary

Here, not sure if it's the same there, it's much more expensive to eat healthy. Fruits and vegetables cost much more than a bag of crisps or prepared meals. I agree with the lower income bit. I support myself and find it much easier to buy a dollar bag of pretzels than spend $5 on 2 apples.

I wouldn't necessarily agree that kids eat junk at home and therefore eat junk out of the home. Perhaps they eat good at home and feel 'free' out of the home because they're able to eat whatever crud they want.

I don't let my kids have school dinners anymore - the cr*p they feed them is revolting, even they say that themselves. My son is ADHD and reacts badly to certain additives, if he has a school dinner then he's climbing the walls for hours! I have always made sure they eat loads of fruit and veg, in all fariness they love it and when out will quite often pick a salad or similar, but then other diners look at me as if to say 'you mean thing, forcing them to eat rabbit food!'
The bit that really bugs me is that they charge £1.60 or whatever for a meal, yet only 37p of that actually pays for the food. So where the heck is the rest of it going? I appreciate the staff need paying, but 75% of the total cost?? It's outrageous.
Has anyone seen the film SuperSize Me?? It's fascinating, places like Maccy D's throw in loads of sugar so that the eaters essentially become addicted to the food and crave the sugar rush that it gives. After 1 month of eating just Macdonalds, this guy's liver was in the same state as a severe alcoholic due to all the fat that he was eating - even the doctor was astounded. He also put on something like 2 stone in weight....

Jane

Mr Spock yes it is slightly dearer to eat healthy - like you say crisps and sweets cost less than say fruit.

The reason I know this is last year, me and Kyle decided to only buy fresh food (no frozen anything for the freezer no chips nothing just things like mince, chicken wholegrain rice etc). We both have busy lives and had spent the entire time eating frozen processed foods and one day just got sick of it and realised what we were putting in. On average we spend £15 more on our weekly shop buying in all our fresh fruit veg and meat than we did before. But imo it is £15 well spent the difference I feel now is amazing, much more energy and generally look better on the outside as well as feeling better on the inside.

That said I can appreciate what Lel says. When I was younger, my mother was on her own with three young children after my father died. We had school dinners because that was easiest, not because my mother did not care about what we ate when at school but working 3 jobs and raising 3 small children on her own was not the easiest of tasks. We were set off each day with £2 for our school lunches, though we always ate healthily at home, and had good home made food, school was always a chance to pig out a bit as we had control for a change. That said our Primary School dinners were fairly healthy and usually consisted of baked potatoes or lasange, macaroni etc. The only really unhealthy stuff that was served in our school was chips and sweets and I was never really big on either.

So no I dont necessarily think it is the parents faults it is not always as simple as you make it sound, I am sure no parent would want to purposley feed their children crap if they could help it. I have no doubt some could do more but I think it is unfair to blame the parents solely. Education is needed too for the parents as well as the schools and the children, I think what Jamie Oliver did was great and the fact that the Government allocate more money to prisoners for their meals than to schoolkids for theirs shows just how twisted this society is.

Did anybody listen to what Jamie Oliver was told about the young boy who basically threw up ****? I felt physically sick when that was told.

I watched the Jamie Oliver school dinner program.
The little boy who threw up didn'ty throw up because of the food IMO.
If you watched it, he was crying so hard, he 'threw up', but everything that came up was from in his mouth - he hadn't swallowed anything.

Whats scary is the parents who give their kids *anything* they want. I can't remember the name of the program, but it had overweight kids on. A little 6 year old girl weighed 6 stone
Her mum said she chooses everything she wants to eat, and wouldn't know how to give her a healthy diet!

I'm sorry, but at 6 years old, I got given my food! I didn't choose it.
We had chips once a week, fresh veg and meat every other day. My mum and dad both worked full time to try and support the family.
If we didn't *want* to eat veg, then we went hungry - simple as.

My and my OH have started buying only fresh veg, fresh meat etc, and it's cheaper.
A fridge load of fresh veg only costs a couple of quid, and lasts for ages.
Whereas a packet of frozen veg, costs £2-3, and lasts for 2 meals!
It's even cheaper if you buy it from the market, as tesco is apparently most expensive for fresh fuit and veg (my bf works there).

I don't understand how people don't have time to make food.
My Nana had 6 kids, a husband, and a live in lodger. Thats 9 people to cook for, plus all the housework every day. But every day, they had 2 healthy meals.

Perhaps that is where we go wrong, we buy all our shopping (apart from meat which comes from my local butcher) in Tesco and like I said I notice a rise in price since swapping but the rise is definitley worth it.

My gran's mother brought up 13 children all on fresh home made food and my own gran 5 children and grankids who lived with them, but then again in those days they did not have so much choice as they do now and life was a lot easier in some respects.

Laura

am very lucky my kids don't like chips and crap food much they would rather have a meat and veg dinner ...... I agree with those comments on ready meals being dearer .....i can make a stew for a fiver and will do 2 days ...and my kids love it

I do like 'crap' food.
But i've always eaten veg etc.
My fav food has always been stew, and meat and veg dinner

hi

I was horrified at the Jamies school dinner when he was trying to get the kids to at least try the healthy stuff and their parents were handing mcdonalds through the school railings - that is just sheer ignorance in my opinion.

I was brought up that if you didnt eat what was put in front of you then you didnt eat - I remember numerous evenings with me spend at the dinner table after everyone else had left crying cos I wsnt allowed to leave the table until I had eaten my vegetables. Was it awful at the time - YES - did I hate my dad for it at the time -YEs - Do I eat vegetables now YES !!

Its education that is key. i think the problem with a lot of low income fam,ilies is that in some respects that is all they know in terms of food - as for many its a vicious circle - that is what they were fed so therefore that is what they feed their kids.

My aunt is notorious for asking her 8yrd old what he wants for dinner - of course he isnt going to say lots of green veg please - I totally disagree with that -she was brought up on wholesome home made food - (We are Italian) but she hasnt carried it on in the family.

MY OH was brought up on crisps, sweets and no vegetables. Since we got together 10 years ago I have gone about introducing vegetables and home cooked food and do the same thing to him - cook veg etc - if he doesnt eat it he gets told off !!LOL

However he was a fat child and got bullied because of it - so he is adamant that our kids when we have them will not be fed junk -

I think its more education that is needed but also that the fresh food becomes cheaper than the frozern - eg: Iceland are forever advertsiing buy 5 items for a fiver - and feed your family on it - cos mums are heroes !! - Not if they actually read the crap that is inside the ready made food !!

We normally go to Costco for our meat and buy in bulk and I tend to cook in bulk and freeze it - so will make pasta sauce, lasagna etc etc in large quantities and then freeze in portiosn so that there is always something quick in the freezer if we fancy it !!

dani: