When a mother served lunch to her 1-year-old toddler, she also fed a full-course meal of controversy to the internet.
Viewers were appalled by the items and the portions that made their way onto the toddler girl’s lunch plate.
“So cruel…” one commented on the video, while another said, “This makes me really sad for the child.”
When a mother served lunch to her 1-year-old toddler, she also fed the internet a full-course meal of controversy
Image credits: autumnpaigecombs
Autumn Paige Combs regularly shares videos online with her toddler daughter, Aleigha, who turned 2 this month.
“I love a happy chunky baby girl,” the mother wrote in the caption of one of her social media videos.
Autumn, who has to feed a family of six, has often gone viral for sharing videos of Aleigha’s meals with her 81.9K TikTok followers.
Image credits: autumnpaigecombs
“Plate my 1-year-olds’ lunch with me—no groceries edition,” read the opening text on a video Autumn shared earlier this month.
The clip, which racked up 4.3 million views, saw the mother prepare pasta with red sauce for the child. She even served a plate of chicken nuggets and pizza rolls for the little one to devour after her 2-hour nap.
“The meal has ample protein—and sodium and fat—but low in fiber and essential vitamins and minerals,” Dr. Janet Colson, who teaches Maternal / Child Nutrition at Middle Tennessee State University, told Bored Panda.
Autumn Paige Combs, who feeds her family of six, often shares clips of her toddler daughter’s meals
Image credits: autumnpaigecombs
Several other videos on Autumn’s social media showed her plating up breakfast and dinner for her daughter, leaving viewers surprised by the portions that landed on the plate.
It was unclear whether the depicted portions were actually consumed by the toddler or, as some viewers claimed, were a way for Autumn to “rage-bait” her viewers.
“Overfeeding is abusive too ….” one commented on one of her videos, while another said, “If your goal is to shorten that baby’s life, then you are doing a great job, mommah.
“You are feeding a toddler not an adult. Portion control starts when they start solids,” one commented online
“Why are you giving her that much food?” one asked. “She’s already struggling.”
“Omg stop. This is so sad,” wrote another.
“This poor child,” one said. Another wrote, “I’m 39 and I don’t eat that much for lunch and dinner combined.”
“This breaks my heart. This would be an entire days amount of food for my 2 year old. Fruits and veggies matter. Your babies health IS your responsibility,” one said.
Another wrote, “That’s so unfair on that child!
“This is an INSANE amount of food,” one baffled viewer said
Image credits: autumnpaigecombs
A meal that includes pasta, pizza rolls, and chicken nuggets might seem like a quick, unfussy solution to feeding a toddler. But it reflects a bigger pattern in how children are fed today.
“This is the way too many young mothers feed their children,” Colson said. “These processed foods taste good and are easy for young toddlers to grasp and feed themselves.”
Cutting up the food into smaller pieces and having items like nuggets and pizza rolls make it easier for the toddler to feed herself, Colson said. But adding sauce to the pasta could make it very messy for her age.
“I would have left the sauce off, unless the mother considered the sauce as the vegetable with the meal. If so, it’s packed with sodium, and the nutritional quality that was originally in the tomatoes has been processed away. Vitamin C is especially lost in the processing,” she explained.
Colson took particular note of Autumn’s alleged portion size for Aleigha and said there was cause for concern in that department.
“From the video, it appears that the child has a significant amount of central adiposity and ample adipose cells in her limbs,” she said.
“The portion sizes the mother served were very large for a child that age,” she continued. “Perhaps, the mother was just doing that for the video. Overfeeding children at this age, espeically with the foods are very starchy and high in fat, does establish food preferences and portions for the rest of the child’s life.”
When it comes to feeding kids these days, convenience often wins but at the cost of the child’s nutrition
Image credits: Kampus Production/Pexels (not an actual photo)
Autumn, indeed, gave a “trigger warning” to viewers, saying she didn’t have time to make a run for groceries. And she ended the video by saying she might give her daughter some fruit, too.
“I hope she is not talking about fruit roll-ups as the ‘fruit.’ So many parents consider them to be real fruits,” Colson said.
Moreover, if convenience always wins when it comes to feeding a kid, it would rob the child of adequate nutrition.
One meal of processed food does not have to be demonized, because occasionally choosing convenience wouldn’t result in too much damage. But the problem lies in consistency: the rest of the week should include meals that are healthy and balanced, the infant and child nutrition expert said.
“This is the way too many mothers feed their kids,” Dr. Janet Colson told Bored Panda
Image credits: Lisa/Pexels (not an actual photo)
“One meal like this each week will not harm a child,” Colson explained.
“If the child has fresh strawberries and Greek yogurt for breakfast and will have grilled salmon, quinoa, and asparagus for dinner, then fresh broccoli and oranges as snacks, that will balance it out. Based on this video, however, it appears that this is the typical meal for the child.”
On the other hand, regularly having meals that include multiple processed foods and preservatives could “amplify” concerns about the child’s health.
Early exposure to processed foods rather than whole foods could also influence a child’s long-term eating patterns.
“This type of food is establishing a life-long preference for processed foods,” Colson said. “The flavor and texture of processed foods are very appealing to children.”
Over time, the child may find it harder to accept simpler, whole foods as they grow older and may lean more towards highly palatable, salty, and fat-heavy options. These early eating habits could carry into adulthood as well, affecting their portion sizes, cravings, and even their overall relationship with food.
Eating habits from childhood could affect the individual’s overall relationship to food as an adult
Image credits: autumnpaigecombs
Colson acknowledged that it was impossible to get the full picture of what’s happening in Autumn’s household based on her videos alone. She said it was possible that the mother had limited income and relied on “food pantries for assistance” to feed her family of six.
“The jarred pizza sauce and pasta are shelf-stable and often given to the food-insecure,” she said.
“Some pantries also give the pizza rolls and chicken nuggets to their clients if they have a refrigerated storage space,” she went on to say. “Or the mother might not have transportation to the grocery store and stocks up on the processed frozen nuggets and rolls each time she uses her SNAP for food. We do not know the situation.”
Colson also acknowledged that it was possible the mother didn’t have enough culinary skills or experience to move beyond cooking quick, convenient meals that are heavy in processed and packaged foods.
“Her generation of mothers was raised by mothers who lack the knowledge and skills to prepare healthy meals—from scratch,” Colson said. “So it is a generational concern.”
“Even if this is for views… should be illegal to do this,” one commented online
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