Growing up in a family that didn’t understand nutrition and just opted to eat ready-made meals and fast food can have a pretty lasting impact on a person’s health. Unlearning unhealthy eating can be a very long and arduous process. So people who grew up this way often have pretty strong emotions about someone buying excessive amounts of junk food.
A parent wondered if they were wrong for threatening to evict their mother who would not stop buying their kids junk food. We reached out to the person in the story via private message and will update the article when they get back to us.
It’s normal to have some rules about food with your kids
Image credits: Image by Freepik (not the actual photo)
But one parent realized their mom would not stop buying junk food
Image credits: DC Studio / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: RiskUpset4107
Junk food is addictive, delicious but often nutritionally worthless
The term junk food came about in the 1950s, in a newspaper article about the risks of food made from white flour, containing refined white sugar or syrup. This is a pretty broad definition, but to this day, there is a lot of truth to this idea. This isn’t to say that folks in the past were always eating “healthier,” although they did have less access to processed foods.
In general, junk food, as opposed to simply rich and hearty dishes, is often sold ready to eat, with plenty of calories, sugar and salt, while often having almost no real nutritional value. However, junk food and, by extension, its restaurant equivalent, fast food, is often very tasty and even addictive to some degree.
This is often why kids in particular absolutely love it, as our brains love sugar and salt. These items are also aggressively marketed to all demographics and are often cheap and easy to acquire. After all, if you are exhausted and don’t want to cook, you can get a meal from your local burger chain pretty quickly and without hassle.
As with so many things in life, junk food is ok in moderation. However, researchers have found that even semi-regular use of fast food comes with a variety of risks, for example, people who eat a lot of fast food have a tendency to overeat in one sitting, as the food is cheap and accessible. At the same time, research suggests that people who eat a lot of junk food are often less likely to get additional nutrition from fruits and vegetables.
Eating disorders are often develop during childhood
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio / Pexels (not the actual photo)
The mom in this story is unfortunately pretty typical. Bad eating habits can lead to arterial clogging as quickly as the age of thirty, which will, in the long run, set the foundations for future heart disease. The fact that this mom has already had multiple heart attacks is pretty solid evidence of this issue. It’s not a secret that she has a very unhealthy relationship with food, but it’s not like her being kicked out on the street will fix it.
So from that perspective, the parent in this story is perhaps justified in being very anti junk food. However, it’s worth noting that being obsessive about food, including being too obsessive over healthy food, brings its own risks. As some of the commenters note, giving kids a “complex” about what they should and shouldn’t eat at a young age is often what lays the groundwork for future eating disorders.
Binge eating is one side of the spectrum, but being too cautious about calories also can create issues. Body image disturbance and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) can both be caused by a person being too obsessed with “eating healthy.” Since many eating habits are established during childhood, something this parent went through as well, they have to be careful to approach this question in moderation.
Ultimately, evicting the mom is a pretty aggressive threat to make, particularly when it’s being presented as some sort of method to “protect” the kids. It seems unlikely that the mom will suddenly develop better habits, but, equally, having children see their grandmother kicked out over what she eats is potentially traumatic as well.
Some folks wanted more details
But most thought that the mom's actions were excessive
A few thought everyone had room for improvement
Some thought the parent was being too picky about food
