Do we have weird eating habits on this country?

[orangeandlemons]

Have just returned from a hotel stay. Guy next to us had 2 plates of cooked breakfast. One for himself, and then one we assumed for someone else. However, he ate the first one, then the second, and then went for toast and cereal. I would have been sick. I think this attitude is really pre leant where people have paid for a breakfast, and are determined to eat every bit of it.

Then whilst travelling, all service stations are rammed full to bursting of people buying shed loads of huge bags of sweets. Everyone who passes in a car seems to be scoffing something.

Finally the cinema, how do people afford and eat all that shit? Burgers, dogs, fries, skins, nachos and they just sit there shovelling it in.

Now I am no skinny Minny at all, and am as fond of crap and goodies as the next person, but the nation seems to have turned into some kind of eating machine

[orangeandlemons]

Prevalent....

[HeySoulSister]

It's horrible!!

I hate this compulsion to eat eat eat ... No activity can be done without a sugar fix it seems!

[GwendolineMaryLacey]

Yes definitely. And I say that as a prime fat example of the weird eating habits.

There is a compulsion to snack all the time, as you say, in cars, in cinemas, in parks. As I type this I'm getting ready to take the dds (5 and 1) to meet friends at soft play. I've got a bag of grapes, bananas and breadsticks to take. Why? They've just had breakfast and we'll be getting lunch somewhere. It's madness.

[HeySoulSister]

I'm trying to stop my dc doing this

I remember when I was about 6 the shock when my mum gave me half an apple to eat..... It was mid afternoon, nowhere near any mealtime!!

[orangeandlemons]

Wow that's interesting about the apple. We are a nation of grazers it seems

[HeySoulSister]

It was 1974 and you just didn't snack back then!

I can't remember crisps being sold in multipacks.... Sweets and choc were about 3 shelves in the local shop not 3 massive racks like nowadays.

[shrimponastick]

I agree. Too much eating going on.

However I am as guilty as the next person. (although I draw the line at two breakfasts!)

[crypes]

In the early seventies my mum went food shopping once a week . She meal planned. And at end of week we eat bread and butter as a snack. She just wouldn't if popped out to buy extras before shopping day.

[shrimponastick]

True crypes

I seem to hit the shops every other day - despite having stuff in the freezer and cupboards.

We should all try and not shop for a week and empty out our storecupboards :) Could be some interesting meals.

[HeySoulSister]

shrimp I love doing that.... Emptying the cupboards! But then. Dd comes along and says we should stock up... Just in case, so I panic buy!

[TheNebulousBoojum]

I do that every January shrimp, and the couple of times a year we have a lean month due to unexpected cash outlays. Known as Wassin months.
You do end up with some exotic creations.

[ivykaty44]

I was at the gym early this week when I watched a person with two dc put them into towels after they had been in the water and sit them in the female changing rooms and give them food to eat.

As I was drying myself I thought it was strange that the lady wanted them to sit and eat surrounded by sweaty naked bodies and clean bodies also naked - what a bizare thing to do.

Why not wait until they were all ready and go and eat in the cafe at the gym, the benches outside or wait until they got home. There are surely far nicer places to eat than the gym female changing rooms?

[TheNebulousBoojum]

Small, hungry, tired wet children?
if they were under 5, it's the easiest way to keep them quiet and content whilst she got sorted. Like all those experienced parents that meet their reception children with a bread roll or a banana.
Children mostly don't care about their surroundings, it's all about the food.

[ivykaty44]

no I doubt children no any difference about their surroundings for eating and when they grow up they will continue to eat in changing rooms - which is still weird to me.

as for eating in the street after school I am sure it would be fine until they got home.

As someone said further up the thread back in the 70's there wasn't all this snacking between meals and those parents weren't inexperienced

[TheNebulousBoojum]

Yup, I remember the 70s!
I agree that it's daft that people eat huge amounts, constantly, especially as the majority are far less active than they used to be.
I was just trying to think of an explanation for eating in a changing room, which is why I also assumed the children were pre-school.
Most of the reception finish the snack in the playground, it never gets to the street.

[devonsmummy]

We're you in Wales? Could have been my DH!!
He's working away & been posting pics of his breakfast every morning (saddo!)
The other day it was 2 slices of toast 3 fried eggs, beans mushrooms, tomatoes, bacon .... Plus fruit, cereal & toast.
Enough food for an entire day!
I remember years ago in Pizza Hut buffet I was stunned to see a guy go up & put an entire pizza on his plate.
Greed, pure greed.

[forevergreek]

I never snacked as a child on a regular basis, just the transom ice cream on the beach in summer/ cake out with grandparents etc. but def not daily. It hadnt even occurred to me to constantly offer snacks to my children either. They have 3 meals a day, and do have a snack of fruit between 3-4 usually. A friend who visited was horrified when she found out they had breakfast that day at 9am and the next food was about 12.30. 3 1/2 hours without food, it's normal. ( they visited that eve), the same day she said hers of the same age had 7.30 am breakfast, with a snack roughly every hour until lunch, followed by lunch then snacks the same all afternoon.by 7pm they had 3 meals and 9 snacks! That's simply ridiculous. Even 9 apples a day isn't needed

[theodorakisses]

I can remember moaning that I was hungry in the 70s and being told supper was only 3 hours ago and to wait. Imagine saying that to current teenagers! They seem to collapse in a heap of hunger induced weakness if we run out of crisps and only have pringles in the cupboard let alone the shock horror of having to wait for meals!

[Trills]

This is gong to become a smug thread of smugness and generalisations, isn't it?

Because nobody will admit to being part of the "we" who have "weird eating habits". Everyone will just talk about how some other people in this country have weird eating habits.

[Gerrof]

I think snacking is the devil.

There is no need to have a constant supply of food. Just have a drink or go a bit hungry until your next meal.

I am by nature a greedy git and used to snack, but realised how pointless and unhealthy it was.

[YonilyDevotedToYou]

The other thing I notice as a teacher is the kids (secondary) buying masses of snacks in the corner shop near school and eating them all day. On my way to school at 7.30am I quite often pass kids eating crisps or sweets.

Now comparing this to being at school in the 90s, I quite clearly remember popping into the shop at the age of 16 on the way home from a GCSE exam and buying a packet of crisps. I rremember this because it was the first time I had ever done so.

[YonilyDevotedToYou]

The other thing I notice as a teacher is the kids (secondary) buying masses of snacks in the corner shop near school and eating them all day. On my way to school at 7.30am I quite often pass kids eating crisps or sweets.

Now comparing this to being at school in the 90s, I quite clearly remember popping into the shop at the age of 16 on the way home from a GCSE exam and buying a packet of crisps. I rremember this because it was the first time I had ever done so. I don't know whether it was just me, but it didn't really occur to me that it was possible to buy snacks- when I was young, whatever I ate was provided from home, apart from a few sweets, and I spent my money on clothes, tapes (!) and magazines. Nowadays it seems that DC must spend a vast proportion of their money on snacks.

[YonilyDevotedToYou]

Whoops, sorry for double post.

[FurryDogMother]

I was watching a documentary the other day on YouTube, which stated that the 'snack' was a construct of food manufacturers, developed in the 70s, in order to be able to sell us more. Hence the Milky Way ads that said 'the treat you CAN eat between meals'. I don't remember snacks at all as a child (in the 60s). For years I wondered why Americans always seemed to eat popcorn when they went to the 'movies' - and then cinemas in the UK started selling the stuff too. I never picked up that habit, but am sure I would have done if I'd been born a few years later.

My theory is that the 'need' to snack has come about because of all the sugar in processed foods. It makes your blood glucose levels swing wildly up and down, creating a kind of false hunger when there is no actual shortage of fuel for your body.

Not being smug (have spent the majority of the past 30 years either obese or overweight) but I'm existing quite happily on 2 meals a day now, so long as the first one is a fat and protein filled breakfast :) I just don't get hungry for more, which is nice!

[mybelovedmonster]

I think snacking is evil. We never smacked as children (70s and early 80s) and I'm always baffled when friends are constantly offering snacks to their preschoolers. The odd pack of raisins is one thing, but no 3yo needs a handful of babybels, a pack of quavers, endless biscuits etc.

I hate buffet greed as well. Just because its all you can eat, doesnt mean you need to go up 4 times and fill your plate. Its just fucking greedy.

I think lots of us have forgotten how to eat what we need, and feel compelled to eat piles of food just because its there.