Reply to WWYD - 13 yr old just binged on an entire bag of Oreo cookies

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here.  Let me be clear that we do not restrict healthy food. He gets to eat as much as he wants of non-junk food. Yes, he gets enough proteins, fats, and carbs.

My mind is blown that intelligent, well-educated parents think it's okay to let their kids eat unrestricted quantities of unhealthy foods.  It's really OK if your kid wants to have six pints of Ben & Jerry's at a sitting on a regular basis?

As I said, we allow small amounts of junk food as occasional treats but I cannot fathom allowing kids of any age to free-feed on food that crowds out healthy calories.

Sugary junk food is made to be addictive and kids, especially teens, do not have the forebrain to fight the addiction.

Think about inserting other kinds of addictive substances -- vaping, meth, alcohol instead of junk food. Of course forbidding something cannot make it attractive. Does that mean we should allow free access to vapes, drugs, and alcohol?

What a total dereliction of parental duty. [/quote]

No one is saying kids should be allowed to eat six pints of ice cream in one sitting, OP. But junk food once a week is way too restrictive. It's okay to have a few Oreos or similar as a snack after school everyday.[/quote]

You guys can't read. That's exactly what we do. I said we allow treats in moderation not that we exclude them altogether.

Then we had a bunch of parents chime in saying enforcing moderation is "restricting" food.  Um, junk food isn't real food. It should be restricted. [/quote]

The nuance that's missing here is that we need to teach our kids to eat in moderation. I have always allowed my kid unrestricted access to all foods. Favorite part of a happy meal was the apples. He'll often tell me I gave him too many chips. He'll eat the fruit on the plate and take a bite out of the cookie. He'll probably never want to eat 6 pints of ice cream because he knows half a pint will give him a stomach ache. We've allowed him to have all the experiences with all the food so that he can use that experience to make his own decisions about what he puts in his body.[/quote]

Well that's just your kid. I'm not on team OP, because she sounds like a loon, but some kids do have issues with eating too much junk if it's available to them, and won't eat the apples in a happy meal. I think most kids would skip the apples actually. I work in elementary schools and most of the fruit is thrown away. One of my kids eats nothing but sugar whenever he's home alone for the day. He has a sweet tooth and no common sense, even though we have plenty of desserts, ice cream, cookies, etc available all the time. That's just his personality.[/quote]

I agree. Many kids cannot handle unrestricted sugar and will choose it whether or not the family has desert every night. It's too simplistic to say that moderation automatically leads to better choices. People with multiple kids in the same household will probably see different eating predispositions.

One problem with sugar is the more you eat it, the more you can tolerate. Whereas if most of your sugary desserts are things like homemade cookies or cake with 2/3 the sugar, when you try the regular strength desserts, they taste too sweet and not as good.[/quote]

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