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[quote=Anonymous]What about only having cookies and ice cream occasionally, when you make them yourself as a family? And have fruit and such available for regular dessert type foods? You can make a nice bowl of fruit and top it with some homemade whipped cream & chocolate shavings. Delicious and my tween doesn't complain it's not a dessert.

If portion control is an issue with the dessert, the make sure you have appropriate containers. With cookies, we tend to make "grab and go" bags. Yes, it's wasteful, but it means no one's sitting there eating 8 cookies when they should only have 2. We don't call them out as portion control. We say it's handy to have them already prepared for making lunches or grabbing on the way out of the door to a late sports practice. We got small ice cream bowls for ice cream.

We do not have dessert every night. We pretty much let our growing children eat what they want at meals, but they can't just grab more rolls. They need to have some more spinach and some more grilled chicken too. Just small amounts. We also let the kids call "dibs" on certain food. We have a child who adores rolls, and once she realized she could ask for one to be saved for her to eat for breakfast (with an egg), she stopped feeling like she needed to eat several with dinner.

Another thing that helps us is when there's a food a particular child craves, teach them how to make it. Teaching my son how to make cookies and letting him see we had the ingredients in the house helped curb his tendency to grab 8 cookies. If he wants them, he can make them. They are not a rare commodity that he needs to stock up on because he might never get them again. We went through a period when he was making cookies daily, and he was feeding the neighborhood with them because I didn't want them hanging out in the house. He enjoyed the positive feedback he got from sharing his goodies and now he will make a batch of cupcakes, set aside one for every member of the family, and then make up plates of the rest for our neighbors.

As for exercise, if you can get him some active friends. Or set up regular family activities. Go on a hike, go geocaching, go swimming. Ride bikes. Don't make it seem like you're sending him out to get hot and sweaty while you sit inside and watch TV. Even consider giving him an option - he can go for a bike ride, or help you wash dishes. My couch potato would always choose exercise over chores and over time she actually discovered she enjoyed going out and roller skating or playing with neighborhood kids.
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