Some minor celebrities have made a cottage industry out of calling out trolls. I understand when it’s a necessary part of the job to respond to the awful things people write about you, but a lot of them strategize for coverage with this. How often have we seen headlines about Jenna Kramer “clapping back” at someone? I wouldn’t know who she was otherwise. Last week Tori Spelling did a sponcon post with Entenmann’s Little Bites muffins, which are prepackaged muffins. She had her kids eating them in a photo slideshow and the caption touted the all-natural ingredients. She didn’t call them “healthy” per se, but that was the subtext. Commenters called her out on it because of course they did. Here’s Tori’s post.
Here’s one of the more egregious comments, via Jezebel:
But its selling poison. Disappointed. Exploit kids to sell poison junk food. I love Torri too, just hard to see this kind of ad. Kids are in trouble because of the food choices. Obesity is a real threat to children. Standard American Diet pushes processed foods. Big Pharma pushed it too so people will need drugs to exist. Can’t people voice opinions when we see potential dangers? Denial and/or minimizing the facts about commercial junk is why we’re obese. Pretending this junk is ok just perpetuates the problem. No one seems to be kid shaming
Tori was probably just posting whatever text the Entenmann’s people gave her for that money which she will never use to pay back her creditors. I let my kid have cookies, cake, ice cream, etc. as a treat and so do so many other moms. It’s sugary convenience food and it makes no difference that it has stuff in it which used to be fruit at some point. As Maria at Jezebel wrote, the real thing to focus on is Tori using her kids to sell crap, but that’s not new.
In response to this non-controversy Tori’s husband Dean recorded a video in which he defended his wife. That’s below and here’s some of what he said:
Hey everybody I am sick and tired of everybody taking a shot at my wife, Tori Spelling. Just because she’s a celebrity they think they can say and do whatever they want
She posted about a snack, it’s a snack, people. Haven’t we given our kids a snack before? Cakes, cookies, whatever — it’s a snack.” He continued, “She’s a great mom. We’re great parents. Our kids eat healthy. They eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, and occasionally they have a snack. So can we get over ourselves?
[From Instagram via US Magazine]
Do you think Tori put Dean up to this? It wasn’t about Tori giving their kids treats, it was about making packaged muffins sound healthy, but whatever. I’m sure they got a lot of BS comments and that it was annoying. I hope no one talked smack about their kids other than to tell Tori not to use them for commercial posts. Tori could have turned the comments off on that post if she wanted. Tori and Dean have reached the “responding to trolls for headlines” level of fame. It’s working because we’re talking about them. I also have to say that I hate prepacked muffins. They leave an oily taste in your mouth. You may as well eat a cookie, you know?
photos credit: WENN and via Instagram
Was that comment supposed to be bad? It was a common sense comment and didn’t shame the kids.
The post was factual and didn’t make any digs at the kids, but these days, giving facts=trolling. 🙄 Some people really don’t seem to understand that what they’re feeding their kids is important to lifelong health. I have a coworker who gives her four-year-old breakfast, two bags of these muffins on the commute to his daycare, then on the drive home he gets another bag or two and then has dinner. And she wonders why his pediatrician is cautioning her about his weight!
To be fair, if something like those muffins are meant as a special snack, not s constant thing, it shouldn’t kill the kids, either. Some people act like even a little junk food is deadly and anyone who feeds their children a muffin or ice cream cone once and awhile is murdering them. Facts are facts, but concern trolls are a thing, too
An occasional treat is fine, it’s good even! I treat myself with something small but delicious with some regularity. However, people are really stretching the bounds of “occasional” these days and they are giving their kids convenience items and calling it healthy, like Tori here. Childhood obesity, early-onset diabetes, high blood pressure, children getting gastric sleeves—I see it all in my line of work and it’s tragic. These are kids who should be happy and playing, not stopping to catch their breath every 30 seconds because they have spare tires round the midsection.
@ SandyStrange
Yeah nothing wrong with kids wanting some “junk food” once in a while. We all know as adults they are going to eat whatever they want anyways ! People need to be more concerned with the polluted air we breathe, the wi-fi that is causing all sorts of health issues in people, the cell phones, the ipads, etc. All of it is much worse than a packaged muffin. Not to mention all the products we use on a daily basis like shampoo, lotion, etc. So many toxins everywhere that we use EVERYDAY and ALL DAY LONG.
My god, do we need better science literacy in this world. The minute I see someone going on about “toxins” I know they have no idea what they are talking about. The word “wellness” is another giant red flag.
It was way worse than that tbh. Mommy shamers are the worst. Who hasn’t given candy and twinkies to their kids? We can make ourselves eat as healthy as possible, as we should, but sometimes we’re going to be in the mood for a muffin! Such is life! Some foods are for health and others are for pleasure and there is nothing wrong with that. What would life be without yummy food that is strictly for its yumminess? Yes, it might not be the healthiest, but I often find that people who have extremely strict diets tend to lose their minds at one point. We cannot do that to children. Let them have candy and muffins once in a while. A balanced diet is possible. Sometimes you’re not going to make a kid eat an apple.
People have been calling her kids fat for the longest time. I think we can all agree kids should be off limits. I’d be pissed too because it was just an ad. And if in your household you have different diets and rules, cool. But people used that post as a reason to call their kids fat and that’s crossing a line. Let children be children.
Signed, a vegetarian fitness junkie.
@Annie: I can’t speak for everyone, but the problem I’m having with this isn’t that Tori is giving her kids pre-packaged muffins but that she’s trying to pass them off as a wholesome food that is good for kids when it’s not. I don’t really care what she feeds her kids. The food is the least of the problems those kids are going to have. But she shouldn’t be advertising unhealthy food to other people as if it’s health food.
Merits and drawbacks of Entemann’s snacks aside, I don’t know how they don’t think people won’t troll and/or concern troll. This. Is. Our. Society. Now.
And I agree that cookies are better. When I was a preschool teacher parents used to send them as “healthy” options and the teachers just rolled their eyes but we know it made them feel that somehow they were better than sending cookies.
Small juice box and 2 Oreos made them happy.
I used to feel guilty about letting my kids have cookies, but then on one of my daughter’s first after school play dates, I put out a platter of grapes, cheese sticks, crackers and a few cookies. My daughter came to me to ask if they could have a few more cookies. Then she came again and asked for more, and I’m thinking WTF. Turns out the other girl’s mom didn’t buy cookies and her daughter couldn’t stop eating mine. Everything in moderation, right?
My first dorm roommate gained 60 pounds her freshman year and continued to gain all through the rest of her adult life. In my opinion, it was because her home growing up was extremely restrictive. She wasn’t allowed ANYTHING “unhealthy”.
Moderation is key. My twins have a snack bucket. I keep the sugar laden, salty stuff in there. They can pick from it once a day. I’ve seen my kids turn cookies down because they weren’t hungry before. Putting value good or bad on food is more harmful than the junky food in general.
This is all just my opinion though.
@Wow – I totally agree and have seen this firsthand too. My mom never let us have snack food and I definitely fetishized it and would junk out at my friend’s house where she had access to all kinds of snacks after school. Same friend never gained weight when she left for college and def has a healthy perspective on food as an adult (i.e. she understands everything in moderation). Whereas I had to pay a professional to learn how to eat intuitively and learn to stop labeling foods as good or bad.
Also re your snack bucket there’s actually been a study where kids were given access to as much candy as they wanted and while they binged at first eventually they realize it’s not going anywhere and they slow down and learn how to self moderate. I like your approach!
There’s definitely a balance. We are pretty strict about what we keep in the house on a day-to-day basis but if there’s a birthday party and my kid wants a cupcake, cool, he can have it. I am a pretty good baker and bake plenty of “home treats” that are tasty but still way healthier than those muffins. I can totally understand that some people don’t have the luxury of time to make muffins from scratch and no judgement on them, but I WILL judge the f*** out of Tori for promoting these as a healthy regular snack.
WHY would you just feed your kid’s friend unlimited cookies?!
Oreo filling stimulates the same part of the brain as heroin. But, treats!
Criticism isn’t trolling. Don’t use your children to shill garbage products and then whine when people call you out for it. I didn’t see people criticizing the kids, just what she was feeding them.
Ugh. Exactly.
Yes! You can’t cry “leave her alone” when she’s choosing to do this publicly AND getting paid for it. They’re the ones putting their kids out there and knowing that there will be a response. But hey, this gets them even more headlines.
So her kids are kind of….on the border of overweight/obese so I think the concern trolling was triggered by that. If I was her, and they were my kids, I would stay away from food advertisments. They will get hassled at school for sure.
Are you fat shaming her kids?
We all need to stop being so overly sensitive, people get offended by everything these days. These kids do not look healthy.
It’s not “fat shaming the kids”, it’s shaming the parents who are allowing it. When children are overweight, barring some rare medical condition, that’s on the parents for feeding them a crap diet.
I agree with starkiller. If your kids are overweight, which ALL of her kids are, it’s likely that the household is unhealthy and the blame is on the parents. If it was just one of the kids, maybe you could just shrug it off. Honey Booboo is an example I look to. That girl is fat because her mother made her that way. No healthy example.
@OriginalTessa, you think that skinny little boy and the baby are overweight?
https://images.app.goo.gl/T2u384EcUCqAEpAx9
No, just give them time though. Her older kids weren’t always overweight either.
I agree. Childhood obesity is a serious problem that leads to lifelong health issues, yet if anyone points out that a parent is contributing to giving their child this disease, they’re accused of “fat shaming” (see above). Several of her kids are quite pudgy and I’m sure these aren’t the only “treats/snacks” they get, so encouraging the public to feed their kids junk is definitely a problem. I care about children who are overweight and I will speak up in their defense. Wouldn’t you speak up if she was smoking next to them and harming their health, even if it was “occasionally”?
On one hand I feel like it’s her kids, therefor her business how she chooses to raise them but on the other hand, she’s made a living off of sharing her life with the world. I’m not sure she can claim “privacy” at this stage, especially when she’s literally using those kids to get promotional kickbacks. Shame on her for exposing them to this kind of criticism.
I don’t have kids but I DO have cats and all I will say is that when I see very fat cats on IG, I blame the owners. True that sometimes the weight gain can be due to thyroid issues but typically, it’s just a case of the owners overfeeding their cats. To me, that borders on abuse. Maybe “abuse” is too strong but at the very least, it is harmful and lazy.
It doesn’t matter if her kids are the size of sumo wrestlers, it’s no ones business to tell her how to raise her kids and how to feed them. For all you know they could have other health issues. What happened to people just doing their own thing?
As a physician, childhood obesity is a HUGE deal and if the child is being overfed its abusive. If they child has an underlying medical condition that is going untreated, its abusive. It’s highly unlikely its a medical condition because all of the children are overweight. Thats a good indication of poor lifestyle habits that are setting children up to struggle with food for the rest of their lives.
Yes, you can tell someone is unhealthy by looking at them. Not all people who are a healthy body weight are healthy, but ALL people carrying excessive amounts of extra body fat are unhealthy. Acting as if obesity is a personal issue or not an indicator of poor health is both dangerous and tragic.
I would like universal health care sooner than later. That’s not a realistic thing with 50% of the population dealing with obesity related diseases or on their way to them. Everyone needs to start taking accountability and stop acting like being obese is normal or raising overweight children is an acceptable lifestyle choice.
@Wow,
Um, as a physician I really would like to encourage you to look into HAES-informed research before making statements like all people who have excess weight are unhealthy, as this has been proven time and again to be untrue.
These muffins are not healthy and shouldn’t be promoted as such, but doctors who begin shaming children early for their body size create patterns of restrict-binge eating that can lead to eating disorders. I would really encourage you to promote healthy, active lifestyles from a weight-neutral approach.
@Tweetime.
I have some serious issues with the HAES community. I know there are some people who don’t fall within the normal BMI and are still healthy. They exercise regularly and they generally make healthy food choices. However, a lot of the people on social media promoting HAES aren’t like that. They’re morbidly obese people who have or are at risk for serious health issues, and they’re in denial. There is simply no way a woman who weighs almost 400 pounds is healthy, and yet, there are people like this running “body positivity” and HAES social media accounts.
@tweetime i said excess fat not opening a discussion about BMI, which can be a flawed metric for people who are athletes, but I’m discussing excess fat. Fat is a visibly diagnosable symptom of overfeeding. Joint issues, hormone disruption, diabetes, pulmonary and cardiac issues… hell, even mental illness can be treated to some degree with weight management.
I see 5 year olds coming in with uncontrolled diabetes. 250 pound people complaining of chronic pain that are delusional and think I’m refusing them care because they are obese. If you are 100 pounds overweight its a good indication your chronic pain is from carrying 100 extra pounds around all the time, and not some incredibly rare nerve disorder you googled and think you have all the symptoms of.
Obesity puts an incredible strain on healthcare. I work at a public hospital where we have to limit a lot of things to be able to deal with all of the obesity related issues. Just because you don’t show signs this instant doesn’t mean that you are not destroying your body by carrying extra fat.
Also, body builders have similar joint issues to the morbidly obese. Human bodies are only structured to carry so much weight.
Affordable, available public healthcare services literally depend on the obesity epidemic getting a hold on itself and 50%-60% of people who are overweight managing their health for the greater good of society to lower healthcare costs.
We spend an enormous amount of money on obesity related illnesses. I refuse to feed the delusions that obesity is no big deal or its a personal problem that doesn’t affect others.
I’m not saying go to the other extreme, but we can’t feed this delusion. It’s literally killing people.
Everything WOW said +1,000
@Dani: You’re right. It’s no one’s business how Tori raises her kids. Which is why she should stop making her children everyone’s business by exploiting every part of their lives for money and attention. She’s putting her parenting on display for cash. She should stop doing that if she doesn’t want people commenting on her parenting.
Allie – I 10000% agree with you. However, people should also learn to just turn their heads to things that don’t concern them. Tori is a problematic person. Always has been. She won’t change. Her kids deal with enough with her being their mom – they don’t need thousands of strangers mocking their weight.
I was an overweight child who grew up to be an obese adult. I don’t think acknowledging that these kids have weight problems is “fat shaming”. In fact, I hate the term, “fat shaming”, because being fat is certainly nothing to be proud of. When people are in denial about their weight problems, they don’t try to make better choices or get healthy. The problem just gets worse.
Those packaged muffins are the least of Tori’s poor kids’ worries, I imagine…🙁
Exactly. The real problem is using these kids to make money. Get a damn job!
Tori aside let’s not pretend that every parent has the means to send their children to school with organic, free-range egg white and prosciutto wraps on artisan bread. Mommy outrage is exhausting.
Apples and bananas are cheaper than Entemanns snacks where I live. Regular fresh fruit is so flipping cheap and it’s EVERYWHERE. You could buy your kid an apple at a gas station. So yeah… many people can’t afford what you’re describing but there are real healthy options that people are just choosing not to take.
I live in Montreal, we have amazing prices at fruit stores, and often the big stores (big chain or Chinese supermarket) or small competitive grocers, all of which I can’t imagine taking the bus to especially if it’s very hot or cold out. However it would be much cheaper to give my kids somecookies from a big pack from the dollar store than give them each a fruit from the gas station or the convenience store I could walk to.
So I’m wondering, in the states or somewhere is it actually affordable to buy fruit at gas stations?becuase here it’s $1 each or something. I assumed the states were the same hence the term, food dessert
In my area of BC, one apple goes for a dollar at gas stations. The bananas and oranges are more expensive. I use box stores in winter for the fruit and veggies I have to buy. I try to buy California produce, but usually our choices come from Chile and Mexico, and it’s really pricey.
@Desolee
I’m only suggesting the gas station thing because I’m trying to show how ubiquitous and available fresh fruit is. It’s cheaper from a regular grocery store/box store in the US too, but “food deserts” are a real problem in lots of america (where fresh produce and healthy/organic foods are unavailable or prohibitively far for people). That usually is more about organic healthy food though. I was trying to preempt the usual reply which is “some people don’t have access to fresh fruit” which is simply not true. Many people don’t have access to rare/tasty/organic fruit (so, maybe you won’t be able to buy Asian pears and organic mangoes), but plain/simple fruits are everywhere. And cheap.
All parents may not be able to afford what you’re describing, but they can still feed their children nutritious foods. It’s not a choice of prosciutto or donuts, there’s a lot of middle ground there.
Run
The fact that you believe everyone in the US has access to cheap, healthy food tells me a lot more awareness of food poverty needs to be raised.
Daphyllis
I agree with you but the truth is there are hundreds of thousands of American families who don’t the resources or nutritional education necessary to make better food choices for their families. Also emotional eating is a thing. I would never shame a single mom working for almost nothing for buying a package of Oreos for her three kids because they’ve all had a grinding, shitty week should she give them apple slices instead? Obviously. But maybe a few cookies will get her through today so she can make it to a better tomorrow.
But I’m not speaking to the mom who gives her kids a treat on occasion when they’ve had a shitty week. I said upthread that treats are good for you in moderation. I’m speaking to parents who regularly hit up drive-thrus and feed their kids packaged garbage. There are more choices than absolute junk with no nutritional value and apple slices. If you get creative, you can cook decently nutritious meals for not a lot of money. I know from experience—I was a very poor college student with no familial support and I paid for absolutely everything from my own pocket. Sometimes it’s getting stuff on sale, sometimes it’s getting stuff that you might like less than a Big Mac, but you make it work to your circumstances rather than slowly poison yourself and your family with the kind of stuff tori is shilling.
There are plenty of parents with the time and resources to make healthy food choices for their kids who DON’T though. I agree there’s no need to shame or concern troll people who don’t have access to good food, but there is definitely a swath of the population who could do better and…don’t.
Example, my BIL and SIL have a 6-year-old who is definitely on the heavy side. Now, some of that is genetics (my son has also always been on the bigger end of the healthy weight range, despite being very active and eating a very healthy diet–my husband and BIL are both tall and broad-shouldered, and neither SIL nor I are ballerinas), but when you visit them, some of it’s definitely food choices. Everything in their home is pre-packaged convenience food, the stuff that is just high-end enough that you can feel you aren’t eating junk…but it’s really junk. This is not a poor family. They have a beautiful house, drive two luxury SUVs, and take a nice vacation every year. SIL works part-time so it’s not an issue of not having the time either. They just don’t care. It makes me sad.
As someone who has been poor ( and is still low-income) I’ve found that buying healthy snacks is actually more expensive than making healthy meals. When I was poor, I would still try to cook healthy meals with foods like frozen veggies, rice, beans, sweet potatoes etc. But if I needed a quick snack, a bag of chips was far less expensive than a bag of nuts.
I don’t have children, so I could sometimes skip snacks or make homemade snacks with healthy ingredients. However, if I was a busy, low-income parent, it would definitely be a struggle to pack healthy school lunches for my kids. I mean, even whole wheat bread is often filled with high-fructose corn syrup and preservatives. And the fresher bread is more expensive. Plus, not everyone has the money or access to fresh veggies like lettuce, tomatoes, and fresh meat to put in sandwiches. So what should parents do? Just send their kids to school with rice and beans?
I would try not to judge people based on their kid’s school lunch, because I think lunch is the hardest meal to make healthy when you are poor.
@ Monicack
I think the *real* education that needs to be focused on and grown in the US is nutrition awareness and just general nutrition education. There’s a LOT of ingredients and items that are both unavailable and too expensive for the vast majority of people int he US, so don’t get me wrong- I agree with you there. I’ve lived in very, very poor communities (like in shitty neighborhoods of Brooklyn, which I got priced out of when they gentrified, thanks). And I have a close friend who is an African American Studies professor and her doctorate was focused on food availability, food deserts, and nutrition awareness (focused on the high rates of obesity in the AA community). So…I’m not ignorant.
I do think if people were educated about nutritional options, the question wouldn’t be “organic apple slices vs. entemanns”. There are a lot of cheap, available whole foods that are actually equal if not cheaper in cost. Like my example above- apples are flat-out cheaper than cookies, everywhere, period. They’re just not super sugary so your kid doesn’t want to eat them, which is a parenting issue. It does require that people know how to prepare their own food and are aware of the actual caloric needs of their bodies. and it requires that parents think a little harder about what they put in the growing little bodies of their kids.
The nutritional education is a big thing with my mom. She doesn’t get. She assumes anything that’s a “dinner” food is automatically more healthy than a “breakfast food.” Our son likes to eat whole wheat toast with peanut butter for dinner sometimes. She thinks this is horrific child abuse and he’s not getting the “right kind of foods” bc it’s a breakfast food served in the evening. But then when he’s at her house she’s feeding him the cheapest frozen cheese pizza, hotdogs with white buns, boxed macaroni and cheese. All of her vegetables come from a can and are pre-salted. She heats them in the microwave with butter but she thinks it’s healthy. All the fruit is canned in high fructose corn syrup. She has this irrational idea that cinnamon flavored pop tarts are healthy but chocolate flavored pop tarts are not. Neither are healthy, and both cinnamon and chocolate are spices—sugar is what makes each of them taste good in a pop tart, but she doesn’t get it. Or she won’t. She’s obstinate, always thinks she’s right, and doesn’t want to make different choices. Which is fine for herself and I don’t care that much what she feeds my son since he’s there maybe once a month. It’s not worth the fight. But shes constantly on me about how I’m not feeding him enough or enough of the right kind of foods. She thinks having plain popcorn as a snack isn’t healthy bc it’s popcorn but having a single serving plastic package fruit cocktail packed in high fructose corn syrup and a “strawberry” flavored yogurt cup with 28 grams of sugar is. I finally ended up doing a side by side nutritional facts comparison of what he eats at my house in a typical day vs her house. I researched every food and wrote everything down. She feeds him way more calories, fat, saturated fat, sodium, and sugar than I do. He gets more protein, fiber, and vitamins at my house.
“Apple’s are flat-out cheaper than cookies, everywhere, period.”
Sorry, but that’s just not true. If you have access to a large supermarket, that may be the case. But as several commenters have pointed out, buying fruit from a gas station or convenience store is expensive. It would absolutely be cheaper to buy a package of Oreos or some chips or crackers, than buying gas station fruit.
Not to mention the fact that not everyone has access to fresh produce. You mentioned Brooklyn, however, NYC is the biggest, most affluent city in the country. So the poor neighborhoods in NYC might have access to fresh produce. Have you lived in a poor neighborhood in the middle of nowhere? It can be challenging to find any fresh produce in those communities. It’s not simply a matter of not having access to organic or exotic fruits and vegetables.
That said, there are plenty of people who have access to grocery stores with affordable, healthy food, and yet, still choose to mostly eat junk food. So food deserts alone, are not to blame for the health crisis in the U.S. It is a major factor, though.
I grew up in these food deserts and on food stamps. My mom, who was an immigrant, cooked from scratch, and we would take an hour long bus ride to market every month. I hardly ate junk food and I learned how to cook while I was in middle school. Junk food was a treat because it was expensive . We would carry the bags home if you didn’t have money for the bus. Yes poverty is horrible and limits the access to fresh food. However, if people cooked more and taught their kids to cook , their wouldn’t such a national obesity epidemic. Just eating an meal of rice and beans gives you all the amino acids that you need. Eating bean, grains or quinoa. Adding fresh or frozen fruits and vegetable to you diet. Drinking water instead of fruit juice or soda. Eating oatmeal in the morning. Buying bag of fruit on sale. Look for coupons. A poor diet increases your risk of cardiovascular disease that can be mostly avoidable.
@lexluthorblack I agree with you about cooking at home. I mentioned upthread that as a low-income person I would often cook frozen veggies, beans, rice, and sweet potatoes. This was cheaper and healthier than buying pre-packaged meals. But what do you suggest parents should pack for their children’s school lunch? Did you only take rice and beans to school? I guess I don’t think it’s that big of a deal if parents put processed snack in their child’s lunchbox, especially if they’re eating healthy meals at home.
Sorry to be that mom…. I would never buy this crap for my children.
My kids get healthy snacks, and they definitely get treats like cookies, a piece of chocolate, cake or ice cream. Usually if it’s a baked good I’ve made it myself.
What they don’t get is any packaged crap that isn’t even actual food… like these shitty muffins. I once nannied for a couple who were both doctors. DOCTORS. And their children ate these muffins on the daily. 90% of what these kids ate came out of a package. And guess what? Neither kid could poop, they were both on a daily mirilax regimen since the age of 5. They were always hungry because they never got real food. I did my best to change this when they were in my care, like hey ever hear of apple slices? But they weren’t my kids and it wasn’t up to me.
When I had my own kids I decided that packaged food was to be a highly limited part of our diet, not a regular or daily snack. And these muffins are the worst of it. 1000000 ingredients, many unpronounceable Frankenfoods, and zero nutrition, and they don’t taste like real food at all.
Tori can deal with hearing it. Kids do deserve better. When my kids get treats even then it’s real food. I hate prepackaged crap food for kids. Breaks my heart for kids who are fed this all the time and don’t develop a taste for Whole Foods, fresh foods. It’s bad for the digestive system, the mind, all of it.
There’s my rant.
AGREED. Treats are fine, as TREATS. My mom fed me a medium-healthy diet growing up. Like, she did have vegetables around but there were also a lot of cookies. Like the kids you mention, I was constantly having trouble pooping. I was periodically put on prune juice regimens and I remember also one time actually sitting on the toilet eating celery (so yeah, my parents knew what food makes you poop vs. not, they just….still kept a lot of junk around). I realize as my son gets older we will have less control over his diet, but for now…we offer a lot of healthy options and I’m simply not willing to make stuff like those muffins a daily occurrence. I do think your taste buds can be conditioned to like particular foods and if you grow up eating a healthy diet you are going to gravitate back to that. My son really likes to “help” in the kitchen and I have tried to make it easy/fun for him to get healthy snacks. We keep lots of fruit and almonds around and he loves those. He has a little apple slicer that we keep on a special low shelf for him and he LOVES to slice his own apple or pear. We make healthy crackers together and he will roll them out and cut shapes like you would with cookies.
Someone like Tori really has no excuse.
I know her mom Candy says she pays for lots of stuff- rent, kids’ tuition, etc. do you think she gives a certain amount of money per kid? Which is why there’s a fifth kid?
Or perhaps I’m just assigning evil motives to lack of birth control.
While I respect tori’s constant hustle and work ethic, her total denial of reality is gross.
And must be such a stressful way to live for her and those kids. Constant moving. No stability. Litigation for large debt.
She instagrams pretty pictures but it seems like an awful way of life to me.
Tori barely inherited anything when her father died. But I have read that Candy has set up pretty nice trust funds for each grandkid. Like at least a million dollars. So maybe Tori thinks more kids, more money (even though it won’t be hers).
She inherited $800,000, hardly minor. Most of us would be debt free with that. She could have paid for an education with that kind of $$ and been prepared to to actually get a real job but she squandered it.
I have really mixed feelings about Tori’s inheritance or lack thereof. $800,000 is a lot of money to us, but in the lifestyle she was raised it’s pennies. Hell Meghan spent close to that on a maternity wardrobe. Her parents treated her like a princess and spoiled the crap out of her, but didn’t set her up to succeed on her own or have any understanding of managing money. What did they think was going to happen? She’s a grownup now obviously, but her dad didn’t do her any favors by making her princess Tori and then leaving her out of his will essentially.
She got over $800,000, and had a lengthy TV career thanks to her father. Her mother also pays their housing and school bills.
“A muffin is a bald cupcake.” – Jim Gaffigan
I love this. My daughter’s favorite treat is a choc. Choc. Chip muffin, but she knows it’s basically a piece of cake without icing.
I don’t know why anyone would waste time following her or responding to anything. We all know she’d sit her kids down for a photo with deep fried oreos and a bottle of Jack Daniels and call it health food if the price is right.
I love your comment, Mia! 🌟
And if your pre-packed muffins are anything like the ones we get here, theyll still be good in 6 months time, so there’s that…
Picking on the kids is inexcusable but that could have been avoided by a) not using them to sell this cr*p in the first place or b) turning off the comments.
As for the muffins, there’s nothing inherently bad or wrong about muffins – it’s the prepackaged stuff with all the preservatives, fat, salt, etc. Homemade muffins are super easy and quick to make and I would argue cheaper than this stuff Tori is promoting.
It takes at most 35 minutes to throw together and bake blueberry muffins. Less if you skip the streusel topping, more if you crispy fry some bacon to add to the muffin. Seriously, try it.
We really don’t leave enough room for “I don’t want to” on the parenting spectrum.
I don’t want to make homemade muffins. I do want to go grocery shopping every week and cook dinner most nights. Everything is a trade off.
Sorry, but I think people indulge too much in “But I don’t wanna” as it is.
@Lady D-BACON IN A BLUEBERRY MUFFIN?!?! Swoooooon + Homer Simpson drool, lol.
I mean, on the one hand, I couldn’t care less what Tori feeds her kids.
On the other hand, those little prepackaged snacks are far more expensive than if you just made a huge batch of healthy little muffins and froze them.
Meh.
It’s a moderation thing, just like anything else. You can buy these in bulk at big box stores and they are super handy to have if you’re about to pack the kids in the car and they’re saying they’re hungry. One bag once or twice a week as a treat until the next healthy meal, I have no problem with and I do it. My kids eat these. My kids are also quite thin and active and love to eat their fruit… and the occasional well hidden vegetable. These too can be a fine treat if they’re just that, a treat.
I’m stuck on the picture where she literally just cut mini babybel goudas in half and stuck a straw in there. Like yeah they’re paper straws, but now incredibly wasteful AND totally uncreative. Why even bother?
it’s bizarre!
Yes, it really is a far cry from washing some celery stalks, spreading a thin layer of peanut butter on them, then lining up raisins down the length for “ants on a log.” That was our go-to after school snack, along with apple slices/cinnamon, or fruit smoothies made with whatever fruit we had on hand and vanilla/plain yogurt. Tori could do her kids a favor by looking into healthier options, but who knows – maybe she does? It’s when she posts photos of the opposite that makes a person wonder and attracts derisive comments.
#imfurious just might be my new favourite hashtag..
LOL
Can we just be done with Tori Spelling, her gross husband and their constant desperation? Just go live your life with whatever is left of your dad’s money and nobody will care what you feed your kids. She literally has nothing to offer except contrived drama and pathetically staged photo ops.
“all natural” Blueberry muffins – yum
sugar, bleached wheat flour, soybean oil, blueberries, eggs, water, glycerin, modified cornstarch, whey (milk), natural flavors, artificial flavors, salt, mono- and diglycerides, baking soda, sodium phosphate, potassium sorbate (preservative), sodium stearoyl lactylate, soy lecithin, guar gum, xanthan gum, calcium …
Ok Dean, no one wants to see your mug that up close and personal. And yeah those muffins are crap and my parents bring boxes of them for my kids every time they come visit even when I say not too. I give them to them but as occasional treats which i think is fine so it takes a few months to get rid of them. I also just handed my daughter some ritz crackers which aren’t any better but she tells me every night that broccoli is her favorite and she wants it for dinner so I’m not worried. I think most parents are trying to do the best they can but Tori spelling is also someone no body should be taking advice from but this is her shtick so, ugh.
Arghhhh, those Ritz crackers, they bring back dark memories for me growing up. They were the only kind mom bought (and we refused to eat, so more for her, lol). I almost felt bad that it gave me such joy to throw them out after finding expired boxes that had gone rancid when I started caring for her many years later.
It’s hard to totally avoid packaged foods these days, especially when you are busy with kids. But I hate advertising like this. It makes gullible people think this is healthy food to be giving kids. It is not. My MIL is so taken in by packaging like this, she would scoop up boxes of these for my kids and proceed to tell me how good they are because they are made with real fruit. She buys my kids boxes of fruit gummies because they have real fruit in them and thinks it is exactly the same as them eating an apple or a dish of berries.
I’m not going to lie, sometimes my kids get packaged snacks because of the convenience factor. But companies is like this one should be ashamed of themselves for misleading the public, and Tori should be ashamed of herself for promoting this garbage.
I think you’re MIL might be my mother but I’m a little worried because I only have one brother, and if he’s married, I wasn’t invited and wasn’t told!
What ever happened to people just minding their own business? Not your circus, not your monkeys. They are her kids and she can give them whatever she wants. All the faux outrage and concern is pathetic. Those entements brownie bites are delicious, so go ahead and hang me up to dry because I give them to my kids. It’s not like she’s saying they LIVE off of it. They are exactly as they are marketed – a treat.
+1! Muffins are not a main course, nor are they ‘poison’. There is middle ground, that’s where most of us live. Who would look to Tori S for tips on child rearing? (or anything, for that matter)
People need to mind their own business? Tori is the one shamelessly seeking attention! She pimps these kids out on social media, she’s just looking for drama.
#imfurious is my new go-to hashtag for everything.
It’s not the suger or food. It’s the lifestyle. Kids can have junk food but how much exercise and nutrition are they getting ? Have to balance it out. I ate lots of junk as a kid but was quite active also and my mom always made a lot of healthy home cooked meals so having some suger or processed food won’t kill u… unless it’s in excess
I agree. We had the same in our house. We had Swiss cake rolls and zebra cakes and stuff like that but my mom always cooked dinner for the most part and both my sister and I were slim. Back then though we had three recesses in elementary school. My son who started kindergarten this year is there all day and only gets one right after lunch which is maybe 30min. We also didn’t have the devises, television options, and general technology back then that creates a more sedentary lifestyle that kids have today. We were outside all summer and winter playing. You could also ride your bikes with just your friends all around town then without your parents worrying that someone will call the cops on them.
@Mel M – Those were the days, huh? We were constantly so active outside, even in the cold, snowy winters, that food was only an afterthought. We’d be so sad to have to come inside and eat a home-cooked meal. Sitting in front of the TV was something tortuous because we’d much rather be outside or playing board games (but we were too competitive and the arguing would upset mom, so… TV).
@Hoot- haha yes! I grew up in West Michigan so lake effect snow, we loved getting all that gear on and making snow forts, sledding, skiing, ice skating, we did it all and had allll the gear, we loved it. I mean we for sure had way too many toys but we played with them all the time and TV was third place for the most part unless it was TGIF or Saturday morning cartoons.
as a woman who has been called fat all my life no matter my size, fat shaming is an issue that many times has nothing to do with literally being fat. Women are told to be cute for other’s benefit which is BS, we are not here to just be cute for others.
When its kids it feels different as they do pick up on habits from the parents so the fat shaming here feels different.
My youngest ate those damned muffins every morning for two years. We couldn’t get him out of bed early enough for a “real” breakfast and the school was serving stuff just as bad. If he did wake up early, he’d be eating Quaker oatmeal or honey nut cheerios so it seemed like a wash to me.
That being said, I don’t care about Tori. Thur outage and clicks on these ads = more pocket change for her shilling so she benefits either way.
Her kids are a bit pudgy but they’re her damned kids and I’m not their pediatrician. If they are unhealthy, it’s unlikely to be the muffins but the entire environment. They could easily just be slightly pudgy kids the way mine are naturally scrawny. Don’t know, don’t care
I’m more interested in why they are putting halved Baby Bell cheeses on sticks; with the wax still on. Edit: just saw above comment, sorry!
My son has Sensory Processing Disorder which has a strong effect on the types of things he will eat. It’s not an excuse for him, certain food textures are truly intolerable.
His aversions doesn’t always make sense and it’s not a black and white issue. But he is nine years old now and patterns are clear: Watery (like apples), big yes. Starchy (like carrots), big no. Squishy (like mini muffins), no. Crunchy (like Goldfish), YES. Crumbly (like chocolate chip cookies), meh. Bland (like pasta), thumbs up. Fluffy (like mashed potatoes), my GOD there have been traumatized tears shed.
Every day he eats a full balanced breakfast and for lunch he has a turkey and cheese sandwich, goldfish and 2 Oreos. Done.
I cook a healthy dinner every night and we always offer the same meal to our son. But if he doesn’t want all the bells and whistles, we no longer make a big deal of it. He eats a modified, simpler version of the dinner and apple slices.
He is lean, active, smart and so happy. We KNOW that we could constantly fight an uphill battle with his diet but after careful consideration with his pediatricians, I decided pretty early on to ease the pressure and try to preserve his relationship with food the best I can. If he wants a snack, he has one. I’m just happy to see him eat.
Our daughter has NO such aversions and eats everything. But with our son, there is an issue and it affects our choices. We do the best we can with the energy we have.
Be kind, you don’t know what mothers are dealing with. By calling it “abusive” and saying we are poisining our children by giving them pre-packaged food …. it is so hurtful and beyond what I can even reason. Most moms I know are doing the best they can.
To other moms out there who are dealing with a child with sensory (or other) issues, hope you don’t feel discouraged by some of the comments above. Keep trucking on. Mini muffins are not the enemy but shaming others is certainly toxic.
Damn, this comment thread got Goopy af in some places, ijs. Does Gwyneth lurk here? Anyway, no, the muffins aren’t healthy and it’s kind of wrong to make like they are, but whatever. That’s her gig and how she makes her money now, and I don’t care. But what does bother me is that she’s using her kids to shill this stuff, and the fact that they are on the chubby side AND she’s using them to shill for unhealthy muffins puts them in the position of being little lightening roads for concern-trolling and some not-nice comments aimed at them. If SHE wants to get on and talk about how much she loves the damn muffins, well God bless, but she really should think before she puts her kids in that very public, very awkward position. I feel for them.