wrote:
OK.. I'm excited to see your responses. I only have 2 kids and the
oldest, almost 3 now, has started this thing of eating nothing but
chocolate/candy if she has her way. We went through this about a year
ago and DH insisted we let her have her fill on the candy so as not
to
make it a "treat". Well at the time it seemed to work and within a
couple of days she went back to eating real food and didn't seem to
care too much about the sweets. Now.. here we go again. Now this may
only be happening because there's chocolate in the house from the
holidays and when it's all gone the argument may be moot but here's
the
question. I think the child should be encouraged to eat real food (ie
a
bowl of cottage cheese or some meat) PRIOR to her having the box of
chocolate put in front of her. Daddy thinks she should not be coerced
into eating anything prior to filling up on candy and believes that
in
doing so I will cause irreversible food association(guilt, pleasure,
rewards, etc) that he believes should in no way be associated with
food
and may lead to weight control issues in the futere. In your
experience
which method seemed to work better?

I agree with your husband that it's good to try and avoid bad food
associations. And when my kids were younger, I did offer them dessert
right along with every thing else, instead of withholding it as a
reward.

However, I feel it only works if you offer small quantities; at this
age, for example, one or two hershey kisses at dinner, and even then,
not every day and with every meal.

The way I look at it, refined sugar was scarce for much of human
existence. Even though we are designed to prefer sweet food, it was the
rare occasion we got any. (Remember Little House on the Praire? And how
they were so excited to get a single piece of candy in their stockings
at xmas?). Today, unfortunately, sugar is no longer ra it's in
everything and anything that's processed, and easily available in large
quantities.

The human body hasn't learned to handle such large quantities. We have
not evolved fast enough. We react with blood sugar swings, etc. I know
I personally can't handle large amounts of sugar on an empty stomach,
even if I may crave it. It will leave me feeling sick within the hour,
and oddly craving more!

In general, if you leave a kid alone, they will select the foods that
their body needs. This maxim, however, simply doesn't work with sugar
(or with salt, for that matter). It's an evolutionary thing. Salt and
sugar circumvent our body's natural signals and interfere with them
until they're misleadingly out of whack.

For all these reasons, it is best to limit candy. I recommend keeping
it out of the house (or at least somewhere the child can't find it). A
few things we do in our house include:

1) Once a week, I buy one sweet item for the whole family, usually a
quart of ice cream. When it's gone, it's gone, and I don't buy more
until the next shopping trip. Therefore, I don't limit intake on a
daily basis. If everyone wants to pig out and eat their 1/4 share of
that quart on the first day, then so be it. The kids have figured out
that they can ration it over the week to have a little each day. I
don't fret whether they eat it all on the first day, or a little all
week long, because either way, it is the same percentage of their
weekly calories.

2) For occasions such as Halloween or Easter, I let the girls go
hog-wild and eat to their heart's content. Then the next day, the candy
disappears - either I take it to work and leave it in the break room,
or I have also been known to throw it in the trash. I've been doing
this for so long, they've never complained or balked about it.

They're now at the age where they are old enough to come home from
school with candy they bought with their allowance or traded. I do urge
them to hold off eating it until after their stomach is full. Not as a
reward for eating a meal, but because the body can process sugar better
on a full stomach rather than empty. So in that way, you are just as
right as your husband, IMO.

jen