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?