Recognizing my own bias or prejudice .....

@imallers I agree with everything you said . I know it is hard I don't really know what the answer is since the fast foods and ads are everywhere . Wonder how the other countries did it like India. My daughter in law her parents are from India an she is a vegan son is vegetarian so they are watching what my grandson eats but he is now going into the teen age years so I'm sure things will change . But I hope not , will see.

@lioness
Hi,

Interesting about India. They have their own fast food places with cultural dishes. Since Hindus and Muslims don’t eat beef or pork , maybe that’s why some American fast food chains have folded. I thought that places like Mickey Ds we’re trying to get around those dietary restrictions with chickpea and what not burgers or tacos. A lot of Indian food is unhealthy too...many fried dishes and dishes high in cholesterol. We’re not that dissimilar I guess. How neat to have a grandson with Indian heritage. I bet he’s handsome.

FL Mary

@imallears Yes that is true but she doesn't eat that when we all go out the Mom tells me which dish Id like they know I don't eat hot spicy food My grandson is starting to have that beautiful olive skin Out here some places are using the Beyond meat which is substitute for hamburger ,haven't tried it do you have it there? Grandson is handsome Thanks he has his Dad,s outgoing personality as she is a introvert

@lioness
Hi,
Yes I’ve seen Beyond Meat in a lot of stores but haven’t tried it. It has a lot of sodium. I like veggie burgers and quinoa burgers but always read the labels. Don’t remember the price of the Beyond. Personally would rather eat a grass fed burger. I guess it’s a save the planet thing by not slaughtering cattle. I don’t like spicy food either. I made such hot chili a couple of weeks ago I had to douse it in Greek yogurt before I could eat it...I was crying . I use Greek yogurt in place of sour cream...whole milk plain.

My iPad is running low so signing off for the night and going to binge some Hulu. We have Netflix , Amazon Prime and Hulu.
Too much to watch ...would never leave the house if I tried.

FL Mary

@imallears : stay on your soapbox. I was a stay-at-home mom to 3 kids most of my life... not necessarily by choice. When I came to the US, smack into the middle of a booming textile industry, I was elated. With a BS in textile engineering I thought I had it made. Nope, even though I had had relevant employment in Austria and Switzerland, the new South wasn’t quite ready for the female engineer at the time.
Anyway, with a single earner household there was pretty much no eating out, especially not fast food. Cooking from scratch, a good bit of vegetables raised in my garden, meat sparingly, home-baked bread, etc. - you get the idea. So my kids grew up fairly healthy, and they also always participated in school athletics. Fast forward: oldest son has married a very health conscious wife, and he himself takes great care of his body. Second son is the main cook in his house because he enjoys it, is good at it, and also keeps it on the healthy side. At age 44 he still sports a 32” waist. Daughter has some spare pounds (about 10), single mom, working highly paid, but highly stressful job with frequent 12 hour workdays. When she can, she cooks, and does it well, but sometimes good intentions fall by the wayside because of time pressure.
All in all, I think I laid a good foundation. For example, whenever I had to take the kids along to the grocery store, I was able for years to convince them that the candy displays near the checkout counters were just advertising samples for the big bags found in the candy isle. I NEVER had any whining for treats because the kids just assumed that the individual sweets were not for sale. Mean? It worked, until the kids were old enough to know they would not get any, no matter what, and never any of the tantrums i often see with children today.

@ellerbracke
You're my kind of woman. Children learn from their parents. Your family is on the right track because of you and you put a lot of American homemakers to shame. Cultural differences ? Not always.

Fl Mary

Yes, @ayeshasharma - very interesting dynamic. Thanks for sharing.

I agree with advocacy for education around nutrition as well as policy change to regulate the food and drink industry. Completely. The fast food/fast fashion/fast entertainment direction we're headed toward is doing way more harm than good. But one element of the conversation that I think is missing is that suicide rates in the U.S. have skyrocketed in the past 2 decades–increased 33% from 1999 to 2017. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for people ages 35-54, and the second for 10-34 year olds. Regardless of whether we think body image is a significant issue for others to have, it's proven that teens who think they're overweight, or are actually overweight, are at increased risk of attempting suicide.
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/03/trends-suicide
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090520064349.htm
The folks in the first video "Do All Plus-Sized People Think the Same?" were being influenced by each other, for sure. I think one of them was a bit judgmental to the others, for whatever reason. But something I liked about this video, and the channel's basic series template of, "Do All _________ Think the Same?" is that legitimizes Experts by Experience, as the Connect community does as well. It asks plus-sized people about plus sized issues. Other episodes interview veterans about being veterans, etc.

I'm Indian, and my parents are both health professionals. They eat Indian food almost every day, not anything fried or fatty (containing ingredients like ghee/butter) and their parents ate the exact same thing. When they were just starting out in this country, this diet was kind on the wallet, because North Indian food (where my family is from) is basically just beans and rice (and onions and tomatoes, etc, lol). Similar to what some call the poor man's diet. I feel rather fortunate to have been raised with a cultural knowledge of healthy, low-cost ingredients and healthy cooking, like your kids, @ellerbracke. This sort of family knowledge is invaluable to pass on.

At the same time, I think education and policy change will always be stronger than prejudice. I've heard of too many kids getting bullied when we have structural problems we could focus on instead of shaming individuals.

Just my two cents

@ayeshasharma

Just a footnote to your reference to being overweight with a poor body image and suicide....There is a direct link between diet and depression in teens and young adults and older adults. Granted that’s not the reason for all suicides but there is overwhelming physical and psychological evidence of that link. I am sure there are a lot of parents who are not aware of that.

FL Mary

@lioness @imallears @ellerbracke @ayeshasharma
I need to put in my 2 cents worth. First, I have to admit, my kids ate somewhat healthy but I did allow trips to fast food places occasionally, and although at age two my son didn't know what a cookie was, as they got older I did bake desserts like cookies. I, and I think people in general, were much less conscious of healthy eating then, in the 80s and early 90s. Interestingly though, my son and his wife are health nuts to an extreme most of the time. I actually think he eats too few carbs. They are both extremely fit.
My daughter and her husband (he is of Indian heritage and was brought up as a vegetarian but will now eat chicken and fish) also generally eat pretty healthily but they do sometimes indulge in less healthy foods - they both love mac and cheese. So, bottom line, our kids are often influenced more by outside influences than by their parents. My husband and I do eat more healthily now, and have cut way back on our meat consumption portions.

Beyond Burgers and the other one, Impossible Burgers (?) do not have meat but they have been found to be no more healthy than real meat burgers. If anyone lives near a Five Napkin burger, my daughter loves their veggie burger. I have no idea of the nutritional value. She was a vegetarian for a while, actually before she met her husband, but then relapsed. She still eats vegetarian a lot but does also eat meat. Funny aside - my daughter used to write for a blog in NYC, "Woman about Town" and she once wrote an article on becoming a vegetarian and said her mother was upset! I was upset -- not that she became a vegetarian, but that she said that, because I was totally supportive of her. She said the editor wanted her to take that viewpoint. It was also funny because the picture she put of herself on the article was terrible.

There are a few things that they do have to have from their youth. When I visit my son in Denver I always have to make a huge pot of meatballs and sauce. We have it for dinner and then there's enough left for them to freeze for about three more meals for two. Healthy, I don't know. I do use lean meat (92%), and tomatoes are good for you. I add no salt and use unsalted tomatoes in my sauce, and being a very large pot I add a whole bottle of red wine. I figure it cooks for a couple of hours so the alcohol, which being post-liver-transplant I am not supposed to have, has cooked off.

I do have to carefully consider what we will eat when my son-in-law is here. You can only eat so much chicken and my husband expects meat at every dinner.
JK