My children have dessert after dinner every day. A typical meal for them would be grilled or blackened fish, sauteed spinach, pasta and fruit. Their drink is milk or water. Their dessert is ONE serving of whatever. Could be something I've made, Oreos, ice cream, etc. They play sports year round, and they also play outside when possible. The oldest is a slim goodie, the youngest is built like a strong safety. They turn down the sweets they don't like (my kids are the kids at the birthday party turning down cupcakes with weird or too much icing), and will also not finish a dessert just because it's there.

Very active healthy family. We have ice cream maybe 3-4 times a week- regular full fat ice cream.
Maybe cookies once a week. Don’t do juice or soda. I’m thin and my kids are thin- all athletes. Donuts as a treat one morning after sleepovers.

Anonymous wrote:I limited myself for years and just craved desserts all the time. Now we have sweets in the house and don't limit desserts and I'd say most of us will have it 3-4 days a week. It really does make a difference for us to know that it's there, but not make a big deal out of it. Typical desserts range from a hershey's miniature if it was a big meal to a bowl of berries with homemade whipped cream, to a piece of a cake or pie. We are a very fit family and I'm at my best when I don't limit my food- around 5'4" and 118.

Interesting. I'm Kenyan and grew up with absolutely no, and I mean no refined sugar in my diet as a kid. Cookies, cakes, ice cream, candy, sugar cereal, never had them. Fruit such as mango, passion fruit, and banana were the only sugar we had. I'm from a family of 4 kids. None of us like sugar. When I have a dessert I can't finish it. The sugar so so overpowering, it is almost as bad as grabbing a handful of salt and putting it in my mouth. I think the American diet craves it because your babies are given it pretty early in life and you crave it, making it very had as to ever step away from. Because I dont like sugar, and I'm in charge of the food, i never have it in the house. Though my kids are not as extreme as me in my dislike for sickening sweet foods, they certainly dont ask for it.

On special occasions only.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not like fanatic health nuts, just normal healthy maybe active joggers and kids might be student-athletes families. Also, do these sort of "normal healthy" families stock any sweets in the fridge/pantry? If yes, what sort?

I grew up with parents who never ever stocked sweets in the house and we maybe had dessert 2xs a month. As a result none of us kids has a sweet tooth. We can all even detect sugar in foods that are supposed to be savory. With that said, I also dont bring sweets into the house (mainly because I dont have a taste for them and I'm the shopper) we probably have dessert 1x a week. Since this really has never been a part of our daily lives, my kids dont have many preferences. They like berries and whipped cream and Halo ice cream. They also oddly like orange flavored dark chocolate.

I'm sorry but feeding your young kids Halo ice cream is disordered. That crap has a bunch of chemicals to make it "low calorie" regular full fat ice cream would actually be healthier. I don't understand people like you who think food laden with chemicals is better than actual real food just because of the calorie count.

If fruit counts as dessert, then most days. Maybe once a week they have a popsicle.

I limited myself for years and just craved desserts all the time. Now we have sweets in the house and don't limit desserts and I'd say most of us will have it 3-4 days a week. It really does make a difference for us to know that it's there, but not make a big deal out of it. Typical desserts range from a hershey's miniature if it was a big meal to a bowl of berries with homemade whipped cream, to a piece of a cake or pie. We are a very fit family and I'm at my best when I don't limit my food- around 5'4" and 118.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD (age 4) and I eat healthily. I.E: Tonight, for Dinner, she had tortellini, corn, peas, tomatos, oranges. For dessert, she had pumpkin chocolate chip bread (homemade by one of students mom.) We do eat dessert pretty much everyday. Right now, at home, we have Oreo cookies, vanilla ice cream, miniature chocolates, animal crackers, ice cream sandwiches, popsicles...:

You consider that healthy? Pasta and dessert?

and oreos... And the healthiest thing her kid ate is peas, which aren't exactly known for their nutritional punch as far as green vegetables go. We call that a filler in our house.

Wonder who she's comparing herself to.

Ok I’ll bite. What are your 4 year olds eating for dinner?

It’s mediterranean night-Spanakopita, carrots, hummus, chickpeas with a few chunks of rotisserie chicken. Not the healthiest meal ever but it beats pasta and pumpkin bread.

Barf.

Sounds good to me. You probably feed your kid nuggets and mac and cheese and brag about how healthy that is.

No, I just don't have a gigantic stick lodged up the nether regions like you do.

Anonymous wrote:Our weakness is salt, not sugar. Ice cream goes untouched. But pizza lasts 30 minutes, tops. So I focus more on limiting salt.

DS (and DH lol) would trade all their Halloween candy for goldfish and pretzels if given the choice.

Our weakness is salt, not sugar. Ice cream goes untouched. But pizza lasts 30 minutes, tops. So I focus more on limiting salt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD (age 4) and I eat healthily. I.E: Tonight, for Dinner, she had tortellini, corn, peas, tomatos, oranges. For dessert, she had pumpkin chocolate chip bread (homemade by one of students mom.) We do eat dessert pretty much everyday. Right now, at home, we have Oreo cookies, vanilla ice cream, miniature chocolates, animal crackers, ice cream sandwiches, popsicles...:

You consider that healthy? Pasta and dessert?

and oreos... And the healthiest thing her kid ate is peas, which aren't exactly known for their nutritional punch as far as green vegetables go. We call that a filler in our house.

Wonder who she's comparing herself to.

Trying to imagine someone who is such a giant dildo they're even a dildo about PEAS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do have ice cream and candy in the house and have it as a treat, but don't do dessert after dinner. I would rather my child just have her sweets when she craves them than get into all kinds of negotiations about dinner and dessert.

I dont negotiate. You need to eat your age in bites of the main food plus your fruit/veggie to get dessert. Its not a negotiation its the same every meal. Take it or leave it.

This is why I could never be a social worker. I know that this isn't technically abuse, but this poster should never have had children. This is a lifetime of eating disorders in the making. You have to be truly a sick individual to count bites of food.

Anonymous wrote:I let my 8yo have a small bowl of ice cream chocolate or vanilla, her choice) every day after school. I also let her eat pasta 4-5x a week. I think that the PPs patting themselves in the back for the kale with a small splash of soy sauce that their 3yo eat sound like horribly unpleasant individuals who probably suck the joy out of everything, not just food.

I like kale and quinoa as much as the next person, but good grief.

Well said, PP. Although I absolutely hate kale and quinoa but I'll eat spinach and brown rice all day any day!

I let my 8yo have a small bowl of ice cream chocolate or vanilla, her choice) every day after school. I also let her eat pasta 4-5x a week. I think that the PPs patting themselves in the back for the kale with a small splash of soy sauce that their 3yo eat sound like horribly unpleasant individuals who probably suck the joy out of everything, not just food.

I like kale and quinoa as much as the next person, but good grief.

We do dessert some nights. Ice cream, hot chocolate, chocolate milk, or a fruit popsicle. I don’t really keep track, but it’s probably 2-ish nights a week. The other nights, we do plain fruit (apple, clementine, berries).

No dessert if we have a treat out (like a cupcake). Nothing is off limits all the time, but it’s important for DD to make choices and realize that she can’t have every bit of junk food she wants.