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Comment by PebblesRox | Hacker News Reader

I agree and I really dislike the undercurrent of fear that's present in a lot of parenting advice. The message (implicitly or explicitly) tends to be "do it this way or you'll damage your kids." But the truth is we're never going to be perfect parents, we have no guarantees over how our kids turn out, and there are a wide range of approaches that will lead to good outcomes.

I like to do research to discover options I might not have come up with on my own, but I always try to pay attention to those subtle messages of fear so they don't influence my decisions too much.

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There is damage and there is damage. Some can really change kids trajectory. Some become a funny anecdote for the future. I am a newly minted parent and we had a visitation from a parent, who now has a 4 year old. She already introduced him to Starbucks and McDonalds. Now I have to ensure that she stays way way down on the list of people we would consider babysitting.

There may not be wrong way to parent exactly and each parent is entitled to damage their kids ( within reasons prescribed by the society ). My line clearly starts with food and I can already see I people won't like me in school, PTA and like meetings. Joy.

> She already introduced him to Starbucks and McDonalds. Now I have to ensure that she stays way way down on the list of people we would consider babysitting.

Relax. I occasionally ate fast food when I was 4, and I was definitely aware of the existence of McDonalds. I never had a weight problem in my life, and today I eat fast food maybe once every 3 months or so.

I feel like we're probably not the only kids who ate Happy Meals.

Starbucks might be a different type of menu to navigate, but they do have child-appropriate items.

https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/2121691/single

That's a condescending and unfounded response. Some people can take heroin and not have issues, but that doesn't make heroin safe by any means. You're in a small minority of Americans and not representative of the average person.

> The organization estimates that 3/4 of the American population will likely be overweight or obese by 2020.[13] According to research done by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, it is estimated that around 40% of Americans are considered obese, and 18% are considered severely obese as of 2019. Severe obesity is defined as a BMI over 35 in the study. Their projections say that about half of the US population (48.9%) will be considered obese and nearly 1 in 4 (24.2%) will be considered severely obese by the year 2030.[14][15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States

Americans aren't fat because of Starbucks and McDonalds. Those things are just food. Americans are fat because they eat too many calories and don't get enough exercise: https://www.businessinsider.com/daily-calories-americans-eat...

At age 2-3, my parents fed me traditional Bangladeshi meals of chicken or beef curry stewed in heavy amounts of canola oil. My 2 year old, meanwhile, lives on McDonald's chicken nuggets. There's no way the former is better for you than the latter.

That traditional bangladeshi meal doesn't sound like it's loaded with sugar like a lot of starbucks and mcdonalds, which is one distinct difference. another major difference is that the traditional bangladeshi meal sounds full of fiber and nutrients, which is also very different from a lot of starbucks and mcdonalds food.

If you're a robot with 100% dietary discipline, yes you can maintain the same weight whether you're eating purely lettuce, potato chips, or curry. But the average human will have a harder time sticking to their proper calories if they subsist on high-sugar, low-fiber, low-nutrient fast food compared to bangladeshi curry. I'm not talking about theory, I'm talking about real-life humans, and as evidence for my statement you can read the wikipedia page I linked containing data about the prevalence of overweightness and obesity in the US.

Where did the food that your parents gave you come from?

There is no simple reason for WHY people in the US overeat and underexercise. But one facet involves the disruption of rituals and tradition around food. It's still progress by some means that a mother doesn't need to spend as many hours preparing meals for a household, and can instead e.g. work. But I believe we should generally dial back a bit how convenient and neutral it has become to eat. We're quite disconnected from our food.

Speaking of rituals and tradition around food, the portion control at a place like McDonalds is probably way better than meals served in many American homes. When I was growing up, it didn't matter if I was full, I wasn't leaving the dinner table until I 'cleaned my plate'. It took a while to unlearn that.

So much of American attitudes toward food are a result of our last great famine -- the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Back then, parents made their children "clean their plate" because tomorrow there may be no food at all.

This also extends to our fondness for processed food. Processed food may be bad for you, but it's easier to store and ship, keeps for longer, and tastes better when it reaches your plate. It provided greater food security at a time when massive crop loss still loomed in recent memory.

> Americans aren't fat because of Starbucks and McDonalds. Those things are just food. Americans are fat because they eat too many calories

Food is made out of calories, though...?

I agree that there is an obesity problem (although I am not an American), but I am not so sure that demonizing french fries, Chicken McNuggets and hot chocolate from age 4 will have the desired effect.

E, to answer the question below: because my personal experience from being a child and caring for a child is that anything that is demonized by the parents becomes extremely attractive.

Why do you think that?

My anecdotal experience is the same as well. Stingy parents have led to a lot of spending from kid as they become young adults with moeny for the first time.

Anecdote: My son had a close friend growing up whose parents didn't allow candy in the house. Every time a friend's birthday party came around, he would eat himself sick on sweets.

Eventually he learned some restraint but there was a solid 5-6 years there where my son's friend could not be around sweets without ruining his day. Better education combined with a bit of modeling moderation by his parents, might have saved him a lot of miserable evenings.

Demonizing those foods (demonize sounds intense) helps build healthy eating habits instead defaulting to fast food.

In response to your edit, there's a lot of gray space between demonizing and letting kids have at it. I was raised on homemade, simple foods and despite loving junk food, I have no problem eating healthy stuff because that's how I was raised. If anything, certain junk food was encouraged, but because the focus was always on a traditional understanding of healthy foods, it was easy to adapt as my personal understanding of "healthy" changed. So we shouldn't demonize anything, but we should definitely teach kids that there's not really any benefit to junk food; if you really have to eat it, make it a treat once in a while but learn to appreciate healthy options.

@rayiner: what a weird thing to say. Are you saying that all foods are equal, that the way you eat doesn't affect your health, thinking and environment in any substantial way?

I accept I may be over-reacting a little, but in that particular case occasionally means a weekly happy meal. The kid in question is already yelling "Happy Meal day" on Friday.

Is that supposed to be egregious? I liked McDonalds as a kid too. You get a toy, after all.

This is hardly going to harm a child:

https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/meal/4-piece-chicken-mcnu...

I am genuinely surprised that this part of the equation is not more troubling to more parents. Yes, the toy is is part of the draw. The question is whether this is a good thing and/or a good habit. I think it is not.

I think that depends more on the parent than it does the restaurant. It is possible to fit fast food in to a healthy diet, just like it's also possible to eat fruits and vegetables in an unhealthy way[0]. A weekly treat sounds squarely within the realm of moderation to me... that's what, 5% of a weekly diet?

0: https://www.news-press.com/story/news/crime/2019/11/12/malno...

It is a reasonable argument assuming it is true for the rest of the diet. Thank you for that. I am still not entirely convinced, but I all of a sudden I feel a little less adamant in my position.

I particularly despise happy meal toys for their environmental waste. I don't think their existence negatively affects my child's psyche though. She loves books, sand, pretending to do chores like mom and dad, jumping in muddy puddles, and her stuffed rabbit named Bun-Bun. Nutritionally, a crappy "quarter pound" hamburger occasionally isn't going to affect my toddler's health, and has protein that is otherwise difficult to get her to eat.

I feel like in some way, it's actually better to let your child hang out with this kid in order for them to learn how not to do things. your child may learn to dislike that other child for one reason or another and they'll associate that need for McDonald's with the negative qualities of that kid.

What's wrong with Starbucks and McDonalds? Kids drink glasses of milk. An iced latte is literally just a glass of milk with espresso in it. As to McDonalds--I'm not convinced it's any worse than the stuff I ate at that age in Bangladesh (curries heavy with oil, lots of carbs).

Starbucks latte is okay, calories wise. Frappuccino, not so much, with its quadruple calories bill.

Are you saying that there is no substantial difference between mcdonald's and curries?

Same kind of fat? Same kind of carbs? Same amount of fibers? Same amount of minerals and vitamins?

Sounds a bit like you are trying to provoke a discussion about this.

I personally do not subscribe to the idea that giving a child ( in this case -- a 4 year old ) espresso is acceptable.

To answer your argument about Bangladesh food. Assuming McD is not worse ( I have no real data to say either way ),I am not sure it is a good argument either. You, typically, want your kids to do better so if McD is that upgrade, then I really cannot fault you for this. We all approach this with resources at our disposal.

Are you suggesting that whatever weird food your kids eat is an "upgrade" compared to the normal diet of Bangladeshis?

No. As previously mentioned, I don't know enough about traditional foods there to make a judgment one way on the other. I am actually arguing that what my kids eat is an "upgrade" over McD and I assumed that if you think McD is no worse than diet of Bangladeshis then it is either the same or better since, possibly wrongly, I assume that parents universally want to improve their kids life.

Just to make more interesting. In the old country, the diet is heavy in fats of all kinds ( partially due to history of the location and, well, cold weather ). Despite its flaws, I would argue its still better than McD on most days.

I'm curious to know where your line will have moved to once your baby is a toddler and you've been sleep deprived for an extended period of time. Please follow up in two years!

Recently, a bunch of coworkers with young children ended up together in a social video call, and most of the conversation was about how blurry that line becomes over time. One guy with elementary school aged daughters was calling from his back porch, in the cold and dark, with the lights off, just to have some peace.

Thank you for your comment. I feel the same way about food and I'm rather shocked at the response you get.

And I didn't eat fast food as a kid myself, and that didn't make it attractive to me. Although we went to McDonalds every wednesday after going to the library to get a fresh orange juice.

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