If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Debate on insisting child eat "real" food prior to filling up on chocolate/candy
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? |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
|
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Hi - I think it's a silly argument. Throw the chocolate into the garbage (while your child is asleep or out of the house) and have done. It's not good for anyone and is clearly causing your child to ignore her own body signals (or else the excess sugar is corrupting her body signals). My two cents, --Beth Kevles http://web.mit.edu/kevles/www/nomilk.html -- a page for the milk-allergic Disclaimer: Nothing in this message should be construed as medical advice. Please consult with your own medical practicioner. NOTE: No email is read at my MIT address. Use the AOL one if you would like me to reply. |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
I think most almost-3's are smarter than you are giving them credit
for. If she knows she can eat nothing but candy, of course she will eat nothing but candy. If she knows that candy is a 'treat' and only to be eaten as a supplement to other, healthier foods, she is capable of understanding that. (And then choosing to either eat nothing, or eat healthy foods followed by a small portion of candy.) We have many kids at the preschool where I work who are about this age. They usually have desserts packed in their lunches, and they know that they can't eat the candy/cookie/whatever until they've eaten a reasonable amount of their lunch. Naomi |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
|
#6
|
|||
|
|||
|
#7
|
|||
|
|||
shinypenny wrote: 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. Replying to my own post (hate it when that happens). I forgot #3... 3) The day after your bday, you can have bday cake for breakfast!! Then we dump the rest of the cake in the trash. Don't ask me why I started this tradition, because I don't remember. :-) jen |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
|
#9
|
|||
|
|||
In article ,
eggs wrote: I basically agree with your DH - don't make candy some special treat that is very limited in nature. I think this can lead to bingeing and other food related health issues in later life. We keep a jar of candy on top of the fridge for the kids (DH & I don't eat it). They ask for some ( a very small handful in a bowl) maybe once or twice a week. I let them have it if there is more than an hour to go before a scheduled meal. They are more likely to ask for fruit than candy, but that's their preference, as I buy cheap generic chocolate candy but keep a lot of very nice fruit in the house. I agree with this concept, and try (yeah, I'm still working on it!), to keep healthy snacks always accessible, like fruit, veggies, nuts, crackers even, and occasionally I'll put in their baskets chocolate or hard candy. It's very funny how differently my kids' palates are attuned, after the same -- or similar -- attitudes from me for both of them. My 5 y.o. will eat candy until she's sick (and used to do this with fruit when she was a baby -- I guess it takes her awhile to figure out 'fullness') just because she loves it so much! The 3 y.o. doesn't like sweets, hardly at all, and most of the time, three quarters of her candy is given to her sister. It's not that we ration it, and they're certainly allowed treats at least as much as any healthy household I know, but our older daughter has her Dad's attitude toward food, I think, and our younger has mine. I'm the kind of person who will be at the store and think "I love chocolate donuts!", and buy a dozen of my favorite donuts, eat half of one, put them away and then end up wasting them because I forget to eat the rest. And I don't like to waste food, so I get out of the habit of buying them. My husband, apparently looks at it like "She bought donuts, and she hardly ever does, I'd better eat all of them before they go bad." Which brings me to your next point... It does seem, however, that *you* and *DH* have a problem with having candy in the house and it would seem to be just easier to throw it in the trash can than to keep fighting over it. It's not like candy is a vital food group. If the kids really want some, they'll ask for it at the checkout or wherever and get their fix that way. We have ended up with less in the house lately, for kind of this reason. We weren't fighting so much, but my husband doesn't want to eat sweets, we don't like to *offer* them to the kids too much, and it's not worth the worry or annoyance. If my kids are eating pasta and veggies, I sure don't want them to 'save room' for sweets! I remember as a kid -- with no rationing, really -- having to throw out what was left of my Halloween candy before the Easter Bunny could come, and then doing the same thing with leftover Easter candy before going trick or treating. So I do think the no rationing thing can work, but it takes the right kind of palate. My younger daughter and I could probably have dinner every day with a chocolate sculpture centerpiece, and not take a bite for weeks; older daughter and husband, not so much. (Oh -- and the only weight issues in our family are not gaining fast enough, so really if they wanted to keep eating candy, I'd probably let them!) (And we do still have Halloween candy sitting in the pantry. Maybe we end up not loving the candy because it's so darn old!) Tina. |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
Tina Petrone wrote:
I remember as a kid -- with no rationing, really -- having to throw out what was left of my Halloween candy before the Easter Bunny could come, and then doing the same thing with leftover Easter candy before going trick or treating. So I do think the no rationing thing can work, but it takes the right kind of palate. My younger daughter and I could probably have dinner every day with a chocolate sculpture centerpiece, and not take a bite for weeks; older daughter and husband, not so much. (Oh -- and the only weight issues in our family are not gaining fast enough, so really if they wanted to keep eating candy, I'd probably let them!) (And we do still have Halloween candy sitting in the pantry. Us too. I have to keep weeding out the candy, because the progression from Halloween to Christmas to Valentine's Day to Easter pretty much keeps the candy dish full. The kids are quite good about it. They know they can't snack on candy night and day. Our general rule is that you can have what you want after you've eaten a respectable amount of "growing food." Both boys are very thin, so clearly weight is not an issue. Our rules probably restrict their eating sweets more than they might do on their own, but they have plenty of access to sweets as well as to healthy foods and they eat reasonably well overall. Best wishes, Ericka |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
misc.kids FAQ on Breastfeeding Past the First Year | [email protected] | Info and FAQ's | 0 | June 28th 04 07:41 PM |
| | Kids should work... | Kane | Spanking | 12 | December 10th 03 02:30 AM |
Dennis was U.N. rules Canada should ban spanking | Kane | Spanking | 63 | November 17th 03 10:12 PM |