In addition to being delicious, candy has been a great tool for my selective eating kids. They are more willing to try unfamiliar textures, appearances, and flavors when they’re in candy form! It’s really fun to sit around the table & try all the different candies & talk about them. I’m looking forward to the Halloween bounty this year.
I find myself most self-conscious around Halloween candy, of basically all food situations. I have fond memories of coming home, dumping all my candy out on the floor of our basement playroom, and just picking through it and eating whatever I wanted for what felt like HOURS, with my sisters. Probably it was like 30 minutes but man, the luxury of it - it really stands out in my mind!
I approach it the same with my own kids now and I try not to care but it is among the higher-feeling kid-food situations I find myself in. I find all these weird policing urges that I have to tamp down and silence - not even "how much" but also, like, HOW. Like my younger kid is a big sampler. He will open a lollipop and suck on it for 45 seconds and then open a tootsie roll and take a bite and then open another lollipop and suck on that one. And I have this weird compulsion to be like "don't open a second lollipop! you have that one right there!" like WHY DO I CARE. Why do I find myself wanting to make sure he eats this candy in a linear, logical, non-wasteful way? I do not generally feel this urge with their food - if he takes a bite of one chicken nugget and then takes a new bite of a fresh chicken nugget I don't even notice. It's like I have this really strongly internalized idea of the "right way" to over-indulge on candy? to savor it all, maybe? (all those women's magazines talking about indulging in a square of chocolate after dinner, really ENJOYING it, making it count? I'm just reaching, here.) I have no idea. Something in me has internalized this really negative feeling about the very bacchanalian-frenzy nature of Halloween that makes it so wonderful. My kid literally Scrooge McDucks around in his pile of candy like the big ol pile of gold coins, a lollipop sticking out of his mouth and an open candy bar in his fist, and like....for some reason that doesn't jibe with what "indulgence" should look like, in my mind, and it's hard for me to not-notice it.
Generally speaking my motto tends to be, "everything in moderation, even moderation." I live Halloween out according to that motto but it is one of the harder times I have as far as shucking off the cultural baggage and owning my approach. I have lots of well-meaning, intentional friends who do the Switch Witch and I mostly find myself just being quiet when that stuff comes up.
Now that I am typing it out I can see that some root of it is in the whole argument of, "exposing kids to candy regularly helps them not go crazy when they do encounter it." Which I absolutely believe, and which is a big part of my approach to treats in general. But it can feel like an end goal in itself sometimes - "to have a kid who does not go crazy when they encounter candy" - and my kid goes absolutely apeshit with joy and that feels somehow like I have done it wrong. Which is ridiculous! He's 5!! He loves candy in a pure and uncomplicated way and that's okay. He isn't relatively indifferent to it, like my middle-aged self has become. Someday he will probably be relatively indifferent to a giant pile of candy, but even if it's always a Love Language for him, that's also okay.
YES. I think this is such a common way that this concept, which should be about intuitive eating, gets a diet culture spin -- the goal ISN'T kids who express no emotion around treats and can always take them or leave them (because if we unpack that further, we're really saying, we don't want kids to eat treats which is what diet culture wants!). The goal is kids who don't feel shame about their love of treats, whatever that looks like -- who can enjoy them but not feel fraught about that enjoyment.
The candy thing is still a work in progress of unlearning for me. My kid goes ham on her favorite candies when we have them around, and my rational brain knows this is almost certainly because we’ve mistakenly created the idea that it’s off limits or taboo. Yet my diet culture trained brain keeps telling me it’s essential that we ration out “treats”.
This is a hard one for me. I was originally all for my kid getting to eat anything without food coloring. My kid has a really bad reaction to food coloring, but my kid was getting sick after Halloween every year and it seemed to last ‘til January. So one year, I switched out all her candy for less processed candy, she trades it in herself, heavily limited how much she could eat, and did the switch witch like my neighbor was doing and my kid stopped getting sick until after Christmas. We figured that out too. I desperately did not want that to be food either.
I have tried every few years to let her have at least the non-food coloring candy and smack, kid gets sick for weeks. I would be fine with just a day or two. On the plus side the kid is 12 now and is very aware how certain foods affect her.
My husband is sugar free and is trying really hard to get us to be too, but I did that for a year and did feel physically better, but it was just too hard.
None of this has to do with weight. My husband’s mom told me they couldn’t find anything my husband could eat without being sick until he was 10. His sister only finally defeated her IBS in her late 40s by a strict diet, but it was that or getting her gallbladder removed. I have several health problems affected by food. I did the gastroenterologist rounds hoping I could find another reason besides food intolerances. No such luck.
I am trying so hard to make sure my kid understand none of this food restriction has to do with weight. I figured it helps that neither my husband nor I have lost noticeable weight. I have been prepping my kid to be large because under my husband’s and my fat, we are big boned (not just a euphemism). Our broad shoulders hide how much we really weigh and dense bones make us seem as if we weigh less than we do at our size but I suspect if we were at a do called “ healthy weight” those same large bones and broad shoulders would make us look fat. We also exercise a lot for our mental health so we have a nice layer of muscle under our bigger bodies.
I say all this because my mom is Asian and she constantly comments on weight and constantly commented on mine growing up ‘til I thought I was huge all my life, until I assumed that I would never be the pretty one so I would be the smart one. Then I looked back at my childhood pictures and realized I was just normal sized for a white girl. I didn’t get to enjoy those years, eventually I did get heavy from all the trauma.
I worry that my kid will have an eating disorder because of all the food intolerances and how hard it is to get away from all the weight talk. Especially all our friends who want to get back to their high school weight as if that is some magic number. And because both her grandparents are so obsessed with being thin. My doctors are also obsessed with me losing weight. I have done enough self experimentation to know a certain portion of my weight is chronic inflammation. When, I accidentally figure out what my exact food intolerances are I can drop 30lbs in a week or two. And often it is the so called healthy food causing problems as well.
My husband gets mad at me because he says I am a bad food influence because I have learned to make a lot of dessert, so my kid can eat something equivalent or better instead of being completely left out at parties. But some years I want to cry at how hard I have to work for her to be able to not be left out of the celebratory food and then I get to feel like a bad person when my kid is screaming with stomach or joint pain or breaks out in a huge rash that covers large portions of her skin when I decide to experiment and let her eat anything and everything. I desperately want to be one of the people who can tell their kid it is okay to eat whatever you want instead of walking such a fine line to prevent an eating disorder, but also prevent her screaming pain because of how certain foods effect her.
My daughter is 12 and 4 months, she is almost 5’9 wears a size 12 woman’s shoe and weighs 167. She was always going to be an outlier. I have fired so many pediatricians that decided to talk about weight and used the children’s height weight chart to judge my child even in the years her ribs showed because she weighed in proportion, all her measurements are in the 98th percentile if she is on the chart at all. She really bulks up before a growth spurt and so many doctors don’t get that. At 9, just under 5 feet, she weighed 131 lbs she grew 6 inches and her weight did not change at all.
I feel like I always have to preface that the average kid might not be sensitive to sugar, but that is not my kid. Navigating the line between health and disorder and cultural messaging is so hard and nuanced…
In addition to being delicious, candy has been a great tool for my selective eating kids. They are more willing to try unfamiliar textures, appearances, and flavors when they’re in candy form! It’s really fun to sit around the table & try all the different candies & talk about them. I’m looking forward to the Halloween bounty this year.
Yes! It's an amazing tool for cautious eaters of all sorts.
I find myself most self-conscious around Halloween candy, of basically all food situations. I have fond memories of coming home, dumping all my candy out on the floor of our basement playroom, and just picking through it and eating whatever I wanted for what felt like HOURS, with my sisters. Probably it was like 30 minutes but man, the luxury of it - it really stands out in my mind!
I approach it the same with my own kids now and I try not to care but it is among the higher-feeling kid-food situations I find myself in. I find all these weird policing urges that I have to tamp down and silence - not even "how much" but also, like, HOW. Like my younger kid is a big sampler. He will open a lollipop and suck on it for 45 seconds and then open a tootsie roll and take a bite and then open another lollipop and suck on that one. And I have this weird compulsion to be like "don't open a second lollipop! you have that one right there!" like WHY DO I CARE. Why do I find myself wanting to make sure he eats this candy in a linear, logical, non-wasteful way? I do not generally feel this urge with their food - if he takes a bite of one chicken nugget and then takes a new bite of a fresh chicken nugget I don't even notice. It's like I have this really strongly internalized idea of the "right way" to over-indulge on candy? to savor it all, maybe? (all those women's magazines talking about indulging in a square of chocolate after dinner, really ENJOYING it, making it count? I'm just reaching, here.) I have no idea. Something in me has internalized this really negative feeling about the very bacchanalian-frenzy nature of Halloween that makes it so wonderful. My kid literally Scrooge McDucks around in his pile of candy like the big ol pile of gold coins, a lollipop sticking out of his mouth and an open candy bar in his fist, and like....for some reason that doesn't jibe with what "indulgence" should look like, in my mind, and it's hard for me to not-notice it.
Generally speaking my motto tends to be, "everything in moderation, even moderation." I live Halloween out according to that motto but it is one of the harder times I have as far as shucking off the cultural baggage and owning my approach. I have lots of well-meaning, intentional friends who do the Switch Witch and I mostly find myself just being quiet when that stuff comes up.
Also I just love this image of your kid's joy, Scrooge McDucking around in his pile of candy!
Now that I am typing it out I can see that some root of it is in the whole argument of, "exposing kids to candy regularly helps them not go crazy when they do encounter it." Which I absolutely believe, and which is a big part of my approach to treats in general. But it can feel like an end goal in itself sometimes - "to have a kid who does not go crazy when they encounter candy" - and my kid goes absolutely apeshit with joy and that feels somehow like I have done it wrong. Which is ridiculous! He's 5!! He loves candy in a pure and uncomplicated way and that's okay. He isn't relatively indifferent to it, like my middle-aged self has become. Someday he will probably be relatively indifferent to a giant pile of candy, but even if it's always a Love Language for him, that's also okay.
YES. I think this is such a common way that this concept, which should be about intuitive eating, gets a diet culture spin -- the goal ISN'T kids who express no emotion around treats and can always take them or leave them (because if we unpack that further, we're really saying, we don't want kids to eat treats which is what diet culture wants!). The goal is kids who don't feel shame about their love of treats, whatever that looks like -- who can enjoy them but not feel fraught about that enjoyment.
The candy thing is still a work in progress of unlearning for me. My kid goes ham on her favorite candies when we have them around, and my rational brain knows this is almost certainly because we’ve mistakenly created the idea that it’s off limits or taboo. Yet my diet culture trained brain keeps telling me it’s essential that we ration out “treats”.
What does “ms” mean? Manuscript? (As in, “My publisher’s lawyer did their review of the ms.”)
Oh god yes, it's publishing shorthand, I'm at the stage of the process where I don't remember the rest of the world doesn't speak this weird language!
No worries! Thanks for explaining!
This is a hard one for me. I was originally all for my kid getting to eat anything without food coloring. My kid has a really bad reaction to food coloring, but my kid was getting sick after Halloween every year and it seemed to last ‘til January. So one year, I switched out all her candy for less processed candy, she trades it in herself, heavily limited how much she could eat, and did the switch witch like my neighbor was doing and my kid stopped getting sick until after Christmas. We figured that out too. I desperately did not want that to be food either.
I have tried every few years to let her have at least the non-food coloring candy and smack, kid gets sick for weeks. I would be fine with just a day or two. On the plus side the kid is 12 now and is very aware how certain foods affect her.
My husband is sugar free and is trying really hard to get us to be too, but I did that for a year and did feel physically better, but it was just too hard.
None of this has to do with weight. My husband’s mom told me they couldn’t find anything my husband could eat without being sick until he was 10. His sister only finally defeated her IBS in her late 40s by a strict diet, but it was that or getting her gallbladder removed. I have several health problems affected by food. I did the gastroenterologist rounds hoping I could find another reason besides food intolerances. No such luck.
I am trying so hard to make sure my kid understand none of this food restriction has to do with weight. I figured it helps that neither my husband nor I have lost noticeable weight. I have been prepping my kid to be large because under my husband’s and my fat, we are big boned (not just a euphemism). Our broad shoulders hide how much we really weigh and dense bones make us seem as if we weigh less than we do at our size but I suspect if we were at a do called “ healthy weight” those same large bones and broad shoulders would make us look fat. We also exercise a lot for our mental health so we have a nice layer of muscle under our bigger bodies.
I say all this because my mom is Asian and she constantly comments on weight and constantly commented on mine growing up ‘til I thought I was huge all my life, until I assumed that I would never be the pretty one so I would be the smart one. Then I looked back at my childhood pictures and realized I was just normal sized for a white girl. I didn’t get to enjoy those years, eventually I did get heavy from all the trauma.
I worry that my kid will have an eating disorder because of all the food intolerances and how hard it is to get away from all the weight talk. Especially all our friends who want to get back to their high school weight as if that is some magic number. And because both her grandparents are so obsessed with being thin. My doctors are also obsessed with me losing weight. I have done enough self experimentation to know a certain portion of my weight is chronic inflammation. When, I accidentally figure out what my exact food intolerances are I can drop 30lbs in a week or two. And often it is the so called healthy food causing problems as well.
My husband gets mad at me because he says I am a bad food influence because I have learned to make a lot of dessert, so my kid can eat something equivalent or better instead of being completely left out at parties. But some years I want to cry at how hard I have to work for her to be able to not be left out of the celebratory food and then I get to feel like a bad person when my kid is screaming with stomach or joint pain or breaks out in a huge rash that covers large portions of her skin when I decide to experiment and let her eat anything and everything. I desperately want to be one of the people who can tell their kid it is okay to eat whatever you want instead of walking such a fine line to prevent an eating disorder, but also prevent her screaming pain because of how certain foods effect her.
My daughter is 12 and 4 months, she is almost 5’9 wears a size 12 woman’s shoe and weighs 167. She was always going to be an outlier. I have fired so many pediatricians that decided to talk about weight and used the children’s height weight chart to judge my child even in the years her ribs showed because she weighed in proportion, all her measurements are in the 98th percentile if she is on the chart at all. She really bulks up before a growth spurt and so many doctors don’t get that. At 9, just under 5 feet, she weighed 131 lbs she grew 6 inches and her weight did not change at all.
I feel like I always have to preface that the average kid might not be sensitive to sugar, but that is not my kid. Navigating the line between health and disorder and cultural messaging is so hard and nuanced…