I actually think the most important thing is regular exposure to a wide range of healthy foods, especially fresh fruit and vegetables. If you raise your kids to develop preferences for these things, that will serve them in the long run as they gain greater control over their eating choices and have to balance food groups themselves.

Parent of teens as well- healthy eaters but they enjoy treats too. I agree with those saying it is an opportunity to talk with kids about families do things different ways and have different things. I think including kids on snack options- like you’ve said before- make some muffins, crackers, healthier processed items over the really unhealthy ones- goes a long way and isn’t depriving your kids. It’s totally fine.


I also agree that you can control what you send for food and have in your own home; you can’t control what others offer. We would hav our kids eat veggies and fruit, for ex, before a bday party so they had some vitamins Go to the party, they do what they do and come home. Nothing wrong with saying that night if they ask for dessert, that treats and sweets were earlier that day- but fruit is certainly an option. Make an all fruit sorbet, make your own fruit frozen popsicles- whatever.

All this to say- I think it works best long term if you model and practice healthy eating- stop when you are full, pre-load some veggies if headed to a party, have healthy options to pick from for snacks (to give independence), get kids involved in cooking or/and meal planning- yes even at that age, don’t cater meals 100 percent to the kids though- make a meal and that is what is the meal. And step two, for balance, let them be kids- go to the parties and friends houses and let them eat. Also remember people eat different things - religious limits, vegetarian/vegan, allergies, etc. we don’t know why people do what they do, we need to make informed decisions for ourselves.


It is hard bc our culture has a lot of judgment about food (and have opinions on what other people choose to do) and too many people think the way to connect is through junk food.

You have have your family values and still participate in the fun/activities. But not sending in Oreos and Doritos so your kid’s snacks look like others is NOT a good idea- bc there are lots of ways to do life and we don’t just do what our friends do.

In my experience is not so much about limiting but adding in nutritional options. Want something sweet? Let’s add in something with protein and fiber as well. Craving something “junky”? Go ahead but let’s also have some veggies and grains with that. Pizza? Great! Let’s a make a salad to go with it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You control what is in your home. But you have to let go of what is not. It gets much worse. Elementary school is a constant stream of snacks at play dates, soccer games, birthday parties, school parties, everything. It's fine to say "pick one treat only" when youre with him. But know that the days you will be with him are numbered. So just focus on what is in your own home.

This is it. My kids are 7 and 10 and we talk to them about nutrition and food choices a lot and involve them in meal planning, shopping and cooking. They know and understand why we eat the way we do, why we limit junk calories and prioritize less processed foods in the home. We also have rules about completing meals before getting treats/dessert, but I know that is somewhat controversial.

But we do not deny them treats when they are out in the world and recognize that doing so will just make them seek it out. Hopefully these lessons will stick and set them up for good choices in the future, but I know that they will likely not turn down a doughnut at school or a bag of chips after a soccer game. I would love it if these things weren't on constant offer, but they are and we have to accept it.

My kids are similar ages and this is our approach, too. We emphasize healthy snacks when we’re at home and finishing a meal before they can have a treat (especially finishing the veggies on the plate). I love to bake/cook and include the kids in making muffins, popsicles, etc.

It’s also critical to let kids learn how to listen to their own bodies and figure out their limits. My 8yo can tell that milk and peanut butter often give her a stomachache. She eats alternatives at home (nut milk or lactose-free, sunbutter instead of PB), and usually turns those things down when offered at a friend’s house or party. My 10yo gorged himself once at a birthday and felt awful later— now he makes his own (mostly) healthy choices.

Anonymous wrote:You control what is in your home. But you have to let go of what is not. It gets much worse. Elementary school is a constant stream of snacks at play dates, soccer games, birthday parties, school parties, everything. It's fine to say "pick one treat only" when youre with him. But know that the days you will be with him are numbered. So just focus on what is in your own home.

+1
I always have homemade cookies in the jar, juice popsicles, and healthy-ish ice cream. Fruits and vegetables for snacks. But I can't do anything about what they eat outside the house and I'm not going to try and control it.
The most crucial thing I've noticed is DO NOT get in the habit of making a separate dinner for your kids. I know full grown adults who are still picky eaters because their parents did this. Kids do not get special kids' dinner as if it were a restaurant. If a kid really hates something after trying it, I will offer leftovers of the previous nights dinner.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to say no. We live in a toxic food environment. Be proud you aren't poisoning your kid. Raise him to be proud he doesn't eat junk himself.

This. But the junk food will find him, and it comes down to how his brain is wired, whether he takes it or passes. Regardless of how you raise him. There is TONS of junk food given out at school, starting in elementary and escalating. The class parties, class birthday treats, candy and chips as rewards, then there’s weekend birthday parties, grandma’s house (and neighbors’ and friends’) who may have tons of junk offered, and the sports games/practices/tournaments all revolve around “snack” (junk) sign up, and even more junk on big game days. Then they become teens and go out with friends and eat whatever they want.

I guess what I’m saying is, the best you can do is raise your child to like heathy foods, but you have very little control over how much they will like junk food and how good they are at self moderation.

I have so many anecdotes about kids from school who had the unfortunate circumstance of being wired to love sugar and junk food while being severely restricted at home. These kids ate pints of ice cream and squeezed chocolate sauce directly into their mouths at birthday parties, left a sleeping bags full of candy wrappers and melted chocolate after a Halloween sleepover, ate entire bowls of grape jelly from the sandwich bar at school, consumed a Costco sized jug of maple syrup from the pantry over the course of a week, the list goes on. Most kids are not like this, but when the stars align, wow, it’s crazy.

Like everything else, you have to give kids an opportunity to make the right choices about food. Giving carte blanche to all junk foods is bad. Severely restricting foods to the point that they gorge on them when given any opportunity is also bad. For most parents, finding the happy medium works best.

Well, and there’s plenty of kids that eat a lot of junk food at home, outside the home, and everywhere else too. As evidenced by the growing number of obese children.

True, but many kids eat junk food because they don’t have access to healthy foods and are not educated about nutrition. This isn’t the case here. It’s unfortunate in a different way when kids who have parents who care about healthy foods and were given every opportunity to choose healthy foods have disordered eating.

Are country has a massive weight problem. There are plenty of people with access to heathy foods (kids and adults) that are still overweight or obese. To many, junk food tastes better, hits the right receptors, and is picked time and time again over heathy foods that ARE available. Sorry, but no kid in the US is restricted from junk food. It’s everywhere, even if parents don’t buy it. Kids will still have junk food way more than weekly. And have something weekly isn’t deprivation anyhow.

OP, one way to tell if you are too regimented is if your kids never say no when offered the food you are restricting. Believe it or not, many kids decline sweets and junk food because it’s just not that valuable to them. They know they can have a cookie tomorrow or ice cream over the weekend.

Another way to tell is if your kids continue to eat the restricted food even though they are already full. They will eat ice cream even if they are past the point of satiety.

I had pretty normal restrictions for my kids - no snacks right before dinner, make a best effort to eat fruits and veggies, no soda, but I let them have sweets and junk food without too many lectures. I offered a small dessert almost every day. Ice cream was available to them every day in the summer.

Today, they are teen boys and they refuse dessert, and junk food about 80% of the time it’s offered. They don’t drink soda. They eat candy about once a month at the movie theater. They decline dessert at home or at a restaurant because they feel full, which explains why we have 3 pints of ice cream that have been sitting in our freezer since May. Meanwhile, my friend who made her kids earn weekly dessert with behavior points and confiscated Halloween candy, said that her now 16 year old son always has a glove box full of candy wrappers and McDonald’s bags. He hides food from her. I think it will be fine as he gets used to having more freedom, but he cannot resist grabbing a candy bar at the gas station right now. My kids say that he keeps Mountain Dew in his locker at school. It doesn’t always turn out this way, for my kids or her kids, but there is a clear link between overly restrictive rules about food and disordered eating in kids.

https://www.openaccessjournals.com/articles/foodrelated-parenting-practices-and-child-and-adolescent-weight-and-weightrelated-behaviors.pdf

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to say no. We live in a toxic food environment. Be proud you aren't poisoning your kid. Raise him to be proud he doesn't eat junk himself.

This. But the junk food will find him, and it comes down to how his brain is wired, whether he takes it or passes. Regardless of how you raise him. There is TONS of junk food given out at school, starting in elementary and escalating. The class parties, class birthday treats, candy and chips as rewards, then there’s weekend birthday parties, grandma’s house (and neighbors’ and friends’) who may have tons of junk offered, and the sports games/practices/tournaments all revolve around “snack” (junk) sign up, and even more junk on big game days. Then they become teens and go out with friends and eat whatever they want.

I guess what I’m saying is, the best you can do is raise your child to like heathy foods, but you have very little control over how much they will like junk food and how good they are at self moderation.

I have so many anecdotes about kids from school who had the unfortunate circumstance of being wired to love sugar and junk food while being severely restricted at home. These kids ate pints of ice cream and squeezed chocolate sauce directly into their mouths at birthday parties, left a sleeping bags full of candy wrappers and melted chocolate after a Halloween sleepover, ate entire bowls of grape jelly from the sandwich bar at school, consumed a Costco sized jug of maple syrup from the pantry over the course of a week, the list goes on. Most kids are not like this, but when the stars align, wow, it’s crazy.

Like everything else, you have to give kids an opportunity to make the right choices about food. Giving carte blanche to all junk foods is bad. Severely restricting foods to the point that they gorge on them when given any opportunity is also bad. For most parents, finding the happy medium works best.

Well, and there’s plenty of kids that eat a lot of junk food at home, outside the home, and everywhere else too. As evidenced by the growing number of obese children.

True, but many kids eat junk food because they don’t have access to healthy foods and are not educated about nutrition. This isn’t the case here. It’s unfortunate in a different way when kids who have parents who care about healthy foods and were given every opportunity to choose healthy foods have disordered eating.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to say no. We live in a toxic food environment. Be proud you aren't poisoning your kid. Raise him to be proud he doesn't eat junk himself.

This. But the junk food will find him, and it comes down to how his brain is wired, whether he takes it or passes. Regardless of how you raise him. There is TONS of junk food given out at school, starting in elementary and escalating. The class parties, class birthday treats, candy and chips as rewards, then there’s weekend birthday parties, grandma’s house (and neighbors’ and friends’) who may have tons of junk offered, and the sports games/practices/tournaments all revolve around “snack” (junk) sign up, and even more junk on big game days. Then they become teens and go out with friends and eat whatever they want.

I guess what I’m saying is, the best you can do is raise your child to like heathy foods, but you have very little control over how much they will like junk food and how good they are at self moderation.

I have so many anecdotes about kids from school who had the unfortunate circumstance of being wired to love sugar and junk food while being severely restricted at home. These kids ate pints of ice cream and squeezed chocolate sauce directly into their mouths at birthday parties, left a sleeping bags full of candy wrappers and melted chocolate after a Halloween sleepover, ate entire bowls of grape jelly from the sandwich bar at school, consumed a Costco sized jug of maple syrup from the pantry over the course of a week, the list goes on. Most kids are not like this, but when the stars align, wow, it’s crazy.

Like everything else, you have to give kids an opportunity to make the right choices about food. Giving carte blanche to all junk foods is bad. Severely restricting foods to the point that they gorge on them when given any opportunity is also bad. For most parents, finding the happy medium works best.

Well, and there’s plenty of kids that eat a lot of junk food at home, outside the home, and everywhere else too. As evidenced by the growing number of obese children.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think part of it is persistence and part - luck. For the first part, you eat the way you do at home and you tell your kid that other people might eat differently, but that’s what we do at home. Involve your kids in food shopping, planning and prep as early as possible, teach them how to cook basic stuff.

My two oldest are young adults and live on their own with their respective partners. Both cook a lot, both eat reasonably healthy - I’d like to think I had something to do with that.

Now to the luck part. I rarely eat out or order delivery, most food in my home is cooked from scratch. But there are certain things and foods that I just don’t eat, and that’s that. It’s mostly a texture thing for me, I am picky this way and I doubt anyone could do anything about it. My mom tried, it didn’t go well.

We do involve him the kitchen because he enjoys helping us meal prep and bake. He is in daycare and tells us all the snacks his friends bring. I feel guilty at times like I’m depriving him of a fun childhood.

So make something equally great for him that is homemade and healthy. There are a lot of kids snacks where you can make a homemade version at home such as granola bars, muffins etc.

We do but he’s been asking for fruit snacks ( we do fruit leather instead), goldfish ( we do almond flour crackers instead), store bought freeze pops, ice cream, and pizza often. We try to limit a lot of this stuff while he is growing.

You can make your own healthy fruit snacks out of fruit juice. And honestly lol at almond crackers as a sub for gold fish. Why don’t you make your own gold fish crackers? Plenty of recipes online. I say this as a mom who is pretty into healthy eating but be for real. Also if you are fine with store bought freeze pops and ice cream and pizza often, I’m not sure why you draw the line at gold fish??

The simple mills crackers are great ingredients and good. He likes them. I make homemade cheese crisps ( literally baked cheese) but he wants what the other kids have.

We don’t let him drink juice. Most of them have added sugar and are ultra processed.

I think you misread. I listed what he’s been asking for and what do as alternative. He asks for pizza, freeze pops, and ice cream often but we don’t let him eat it often. That’s the foods I said he’s been asking for more often.

This is American food culture, unfortunately, and you will either have to be very rigid - which may give him a complex - or be willing to blur the lines, e.g., for playdates or school. We never used to do afternoon snack at all after the kids were 4, but then it crept back in because we'd go to playgrounds or playdates and all the other kids would be doing it.

My kids' after care has introduced so much crap food we'd never have given them (stuff frankly I have never heard of) and I can't ban them from eating it. I mean, I could, but they're in elementary school and there are social consequences. So we just talk about how we don't buy that stuff for home but it's fine to eat it when they served it at school or someone else's house, if they want to. I also send an alternative snack so if they don't want to eat the school stuff, they can eat ours; and they do about 1/3 of the time. And I always send lunch. They only order lunch once a month because the school lunch is absolutely pure crap.

Even at 3, they are capable of understanding home rules and outside rules. But it is really hard on the parents. I'm just thankful my kids don't have a crazy allergy or special diet so that there is no immediate consequence if they eat something on my "I wish no one served this" list.

Anonymous wrote:You control what is in your home. But you have to let go of what is not. It gets much worse. Elementary school is a constant stream of snacks at play dates, soccer games, birthday parties, school parties, everything. It's fine to say "pick one treat only" when youre with him. But know that the days you will be with him are numbered. So just focus on what is in your own home.

This is it. My kids are 7 and 10 and we talk to them about nutrition and food choices a lot and involve them in meal planning, shopping and cooking. They know and understand why we eat the way we do, why we limit junk calories and prioritize less processed foods in the home. We also have rules about completing meals before getting treats/dessert, but I know that is somewhat controversial.

But we do not deny them treats when they are out in the world and recognize that doing so will just make them seek it out. Hopefully these lessons will stick and set them up for good choices in the future, but I know that they will likely not turn down a doughnut at school or a bag of chips after a soccer game. I would love it if these things weren't on constant offer, but they are and we have to accept it.

I have one kid without a sweet tooth and she'll ask for (and get) chips etc. but she also eats plenty of salad and vegetables and chooses healthy options for lunch (we pack it). And one sweet tooth kid who only wants kid food and things like scrambled eggs. The amount of sweets they get at school, camps, parties and in general is very intense. I'm ok with ice cream but try to limit straight up sugar like jolly ranchers. It's so hard as they are offered this everywhere.

Anonymous wrote:I personally don’t put sugar in the same category of uktr processed foods. I grew up with my grandmother living with us and she baked almost every day. Fresh cookies, pies, cakes or bread. We were also a big ice cream family. We definitely ate dessert every day and typically twice a day. But we are all healthy eaters as adults. We make our own food and don’t have much taste for processed food.
Lids are growing a lot and every active. They will naturally crave sugar and fat because their body is using it. So long as they are also getting healthy proteins, fruit, veg … I don’t have any problem with also having desserts. But my preference is always home made stuff — both because it’s fresher, not addictive in the same way. And you eat less of it when you have to put your own labor into making it. My teen made home made vanilla pudding the other night and it was so delicious.

I just think that if you’re limiting desserts to just special occasions you will end up with a lid that begs Oreos off their neighbor and binge eats it at school.

Sorry but white table sugar is just as bad as upfs. Read that book salt sugar fat.

That being said homemade baked goods that include sugar are still way way better for you than the store bought version so I basically do what you do as well.

Anonymous wrote:My kids are healthy eaters, I have a degree in nutrition.
I involved them very early in food prep. Touching, smelling, veg fruit grains spices herbs. Going to store and choosing them. Helping wash veg and prepping (no knife of course). I taught them how to make things in micro. They were part of prepping almost every meal.
When we try a new recipe, they have to vote on it and it gets approved or not approved. I leave out cookbooks for them to read and mark recipes “to try”. We’ve tried to make pretty much anything from scratch!
The best is when they take turns cooking and presenting their dishes to family or friends.

So your kids never ask for chips? Cookies? White bread sandwiches?
They eat heathy at school too?

I personally don’t put sugar in the same category of uktr processed foods. I grew up with my grandmother living with us and she baked almost every day. Fresh cookies, pies, cakes or bread. We were also a big ice cream family. We definitely ate dessert every day and typically twice a day. But we are all healthy eaters as adults. We make our own food and don’t have much taste for processed food.
Lids are growing a lot and every active. They will naturally crave sugar and fat because their body is using it. So long as they are also getting healthy proteins, fruit, veg … I don’t have any problem with also having desserts. But my preference is always home made stuff — both because it’s fresher, not addictive in the same way. And you eat less of it when you have to put your own labor into making it. My teen made home made vanilla pudding the other night and it was so delicious.

I just think that if you’re limiting desserts to just special occasions you will end up with a lid that begs Oreos off their neighbor and binge eats it at school.