Just noting that I realized after publishing that this piece doesn't include much discussion of the research on sugar and specific health risks (diabetes, etc). Chapter 7 of FAT TALK has more on this, but we're also planning a future guide that looks at sugar and adults — and I'll get more into long-term health questions then.
The bottom line for kids is: No matter what the science says about long-term health risks of sugar, kids are at a far higher risk for eating disorders than diabetes and heart disease — so figuring out how to help them have a non-fraught relationship with sugar NOW protects their current health and, I'd argue, sets the stage for better long-term health too.
My ND husband rarely reads full books but he did read Chapter 7- Snack Monsters and Sugar Addicts and also Chapter 9- Straight White Dads on Diets and those were both very convicting for him. He has T1D and he does have to pay attention to carbs for dosing but I saw a lightbulb moment for him a month ago about how he was still viewing himself as lacking willpower and realizing we can all be healthy in any size body and enjoy our food. Thank you for all your work but especially Fat Talk, I am hopeful my kids will have a better relationship with food and with their bodies than I did. And I don’t think 20+ years of trying to be smaller is a good idea for anyone, I feel sad when I think about how long I wanted to be in a smaller body even if I wasn’t actively dieting.
One thing that is so helpful for me in your framing is that just because kids have ample access to sugar, it doesn’t mean they won’t still *love sugar.* Like sometimes I think I’m doing DoR wrong because sugary foods are still beloved in my kids’ eyes. I am definitely doing some of DoR wrong, fwiw, but I also think sometimes the culture of DoR tells us if you’re doing it right, your child will love broccoli and M&Ms with equal gusto. But there are so many factors influencing how our children view sugar--not just what happens in our homes--and almost all of those messages scream both SUGAR IS BAD and also SUGAR IS SPECIAL AND YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT! My kids DO in fact like both broccoli and M&Ms, but they’ll choose M&Ms over veggies any day, and it isn’t because they don’t have access to sugar in our home. They just like the damn M&Ms. They’re humans, after all; I too would rather have a milkshake than a salad, nine times out of 10.
In fact, on further reflection, sometimes I think the DoR-influenced local parenting culture where I live wants us to believe that if you DoR correctly, your child will PREFER broccoli over sugar. Which, as a goal, is diet culture BS itself, right??
YES. This is a huge problem with how DoR gets promoted on social media too (there's a link to an old piece about this). The goal isn't a kid who loves broccoli more than sugar. The goal is a kid who enjoys food on their own terms and doesn't feel stressed out by sugar.
Back in the '90s when I took a weight management class, the dietitian who taught it told us about a study where a group of people were given a bowl of apples as a snack. Some people ate them, others didn't. In the next phase of the study, the group was given both apples and chocolate chip cookies as snack options. This time, everyone ate the cookies and ignored the apples! According to the dietitian, this result meant that our preference was based in biology and there was not much we could do about that. It made me feel like less of a failure for preferring cookies!
Reminds me of all those people who claim that when they went “off sugar” they developed like, a taste for veggies and stuff in a way they haven’t before, like they couple taste new flavors or something. But I say as someone who has dabbled in incredibly restricted eating before, if you’re only letting yourself eat bland chicken and leafy veggies, of course you’re going to start finding enjoyment in the asparagus or the lettuce, your poor mind is probably desperately trying to find something interesting about the food you’re eating.
As a mom to an 18 y/o, how I wish I had understood this years ago! I absolutely subscribed to the notion of sugar being the root of all evil and keeping my kid (and myself) far away from it. You do such a phenomenal job explaining things in a clear, compelling way. We’re now both in eating disorder recovery and your work has helped so much in unlearning all the crap diet culture taught me. I’m so grateful for you!
Thank you for this thorough guide! I feel ok about sugar in our house but I get overwhelmed by the amount of Halloween events now, it seems like we have at least 5 planned. Our experience with habituation is usually with Oreos, we now have lemon Oreos that have been unopened for 2 months after my kids liked them in late July! I also don’t like them, I prefer a regular double stuffed! We have regular access to ice cream at my in-laws house bc they have a deep freezer and getting ice cream at Grannys either after school or after dinner has been consistent for the past 4 years (they live across the street from us). Side note: we are adopting kittens from a sibling group where one was named Double Stuffed and I think that’s the cutest name for a black and white cat.
This is so helpful! I wonder if you have any thoughts on how this attitude toward food can translate to an attitude toward screen time.
The idea that "restriction breeds fixation" helped convince me to try getting rid of my screen time limits and letting the kids play Switch and watch TV all they want (still limiting to 1 YouTube video a day, because algorithms and I don't want to watch with them all day). The caveat is that if we need them to do something or want to do something else with them and it's been awhile, we can tell them to stop. Because, like with food, they can always have more later.
I have a fear that they will lose the creativity and self-direction that being bored can bring, but so far, it's been working pretty well, and the older one, at least, is a lot more willing to help with stuff around the house.
I know that games have addictive properties that food doesn't, though I do still wonder about the addictive properties of preservatives, etc. big brands are putting in their snacks. But I think remembering that a little guidance is ok with both foods and screens could go a long way toward helping us avoid the addiction trap.
Definitely check out the Devorah Heitner interview on the podcast -- a lot of good discussion of screen time and how to manage restriction in there! I do use screen time limits with my kids, but it's more to ease the transition when we inevitably need them to stop (to eat dinner or go to an activity)vs me wanting to really restrict how much screen time they get. We've definitely had phases of pretty unrestricted screen time and I do see them habituate and start doing other things after a few screen-heavy days. But I also think devices and apps are designed to be MUCH more addictive than food.
You have to listen to Jessica Wilson’s new podcast, Making It Awkward! And/or follow her on social media. She’s a dietitian and author of It’s Always Been Ours, and in addition to social media responses to a news report about that book, she’s been doing an extended series on the podcast about ultra processed food. She spent the month of September eating a diet of 80% UPFs, and compared her results to Van Tulleken’s 30 days of UPFs. Spoiler alert: she felt better than she had in ages. Part of the problem with UPFs is there is no standard definition of them, which is the focus of one of the episodes. I highly recommend her work!
I’m interested to see any studies about this. Obviously I grew up with some screens (we did watch a lot of tv and did play video games) but we also were fortunate to be able to play outside, do sports/clubs, and have kids to play with. As an adult I will just naturally get bored watching too much YouTube or playing a video game after a while and switch to something else like reading or crafting but I wonder if that’s because I had the option growing up to do soooo many actives and kids these days don’t always have that option.
FWIW, I love this advice for adults too! I think my boomer mom could get a lot out of a dinner where the after-dinner sweets were served with the savory parts of dinner!
I just like nice meals to take longer (like I enjoy that pause where everybody chats a bit before dessert comes out) but absolutely agree -- this can be a very useful strategy to help adults overcome treat fear too.
Yes, I agree that the meal taking longer can be nice! I think for my family it's more the meals with young grandkids that help my boomer mom especially rethink how she views treats/sugar/dessert.
This is great and I have a question! We had a no restrictions on sugar snacks in our house but had to start putting limits on it because our 7yo will only eat the snack food (cookies/candy/chips/gummies) and then not touch their meal. If this happened occasionally we wouldn’t mind but they just do not eat *any* of the food we prepare them because they fill up on the snacks every day. This isn’t something that they wore themselves out of, either, it went on for over a year before we placed some limits. Do you have any thoughts on this? Could it be because they are very very restricted at their dad’s house and are using mine as a place to counterbalance that?
I’m not V, but it does sound like your 7yo has safety and freedom about food at your house that they may not have at their other parent’s house. That is very tricky to navigate!
I think it’s really important to separate how we feel about sugar from behaviors around foods with sugar. I stopped restricting sugar treats years ago and it took a couple years! for my feelings around sugar treats to normalize and not feel like I want a ton of it all the time. But behaviorally to many people especially those invested in diet culture there isn’t a noticeable difference in my consumption between my early non-restrictive sugar treat eating and my eating now. I have sugar treats both before and after meals. I don’t consider serving sizes. I eat sugar treats multiple times a day. And I’m fine with this. It feels enjoyable and good for me. If the goal is to get to some behavior that looks like restriction (or “moderation”), that’s still diet culture.
I love Take Five bars. I only seem to see them at Halloween. I also love Kit Kats, m and m and peanut butter cups ( especially the ones shaped like a pumpkin). I also think there is one person in every household that prefers sour candy, spit patch kids etc.
Re ultimate chocolate snack mix,best ever is avail only at Easter time: Reese’s pieces eggs and Cadbury eggs (the small chocolate ones w candy coating) perfect mix.
We live right downtown in a busy city but our exact street doesn't get a ton of trick or treaters so one year I bought full sized candy bars and it was the best feeling to be the house giving out full sized bars!
Thank you so much for this guide - I feel like I just need to re-read this once a week or something. This is the hardest aspect of diet culture for me to completely let go of. I keep treats around the house and also serve dessert at most meals, but I still have an internal struggle with wanting to control how much is the right amount.
I rarely feel bad for eating whatever amount I want these days, but haven't worked out how to relax about the kids, at least partly because they're still little (my youngest is 2). Is age a legit concern or just an extension of "don't give your kid sugar in the first year"-type advice?? Have you always taken the same approach of kids helping themselves to how much they want?
This is a great question. I do think younger kids may need a bit more scaffolding — like they’ll take 100 cookies just because they like stacking them on their plate not because that’s how many they know they want to eat. So at that age, I might do more assisting with the serving — “here are two cookies, there are plenty more if you finish those!” So you’re still putting them in charge of how much but helping them tune into that “how much.” But it’s also true that a younger sibling will see how older siblings eat and want to do that — which is why those “no sugar under age whatever” rules are such a mess! And I think there can be a lot of value in letting kids model for each other vs us directing it all.
Definitely check out Laura Thomas’s work on all of this — she is actively parenting a toddler (I’m a few years out) and is a dietitian so will have much better/more specific advice!
Growing up we had a lot of like, diet soda and low calorie foods and snacks and tbh I guess I like those things now because I grew up on them. But I still eat sugary cereal and Taco Bell and fruit rolls up when I feel like it cause I’m an adult and I like it. My mom does feel bad she modeled bad eating behavior around us growing up, especially now that she sees the way my brother models it for his kids. Him and his wife are very much into keto, intermittent fasting, having shakes for meals, avoiding sugar type people. They let the kids eat “kid foods” but I bet the kids see what their parents are doing and how they keep losing weight and getting smaller and smaller. (My parents and I joke that when we visit my brother we have to order Uber eats because he has no food in the house that isn’t like, kid portions of yogurt and pb&j, which is actually true since they skip breakfast & lunch and just make dinner for us adults). I’m trying my best to model healthy behaviors with eating and my body when I see my niblings but I don’t see them much.
I really appreciate what you said here about the word "treats". I got a little in my head about the word and it's implications a few weeks ago when I realized I'd been describing cookies/candy to my 2 year old that way and he started asked for treats, but you're exactly right-- they are a treat! And it's ok to recognize that, and it doesn't have to breed the same reverence/terror of sugar that it could in different circumstances.
i am so thankful that i divested from diet culture before the kids were born (actually losing weight in pregnancy and after delivery because i was VERY sick and being HAPPY about it officially got me thinking straight) - but of course....sugar and kids!
We have twins, which is always a great experiment in nature vs nurture. One guy is totally regulated and habituated when it comes to treats, but my dopamine seeker? ALWAYS wanting EVERYTHING, and MORE! So we have gone back and forth on restricting and now are once again in a weird place of arbitrarily saying yes or no and i hate it.
I do think that we still worry he will only eat treats (which isn't true, and we are always helping him build plates that include protein and other nutrients) but also he will eat all of our good stuff. We started hiding our stash and buying a little less (we all love treats) and maybe that is the answer? Like this kid is 10 and will still eat a tablespoon of sugar while baking, after having doused his cinnamon toast brunch in chocolate syrup, and then beg to go get slurpees (and he will want to two fist the biggest ones because it is FUN lol).
We also have trouble with pop because they (both) never seemed to habituate to that and would drink it all, fast. they now get two tickets a week to "spend" on a can of pop whenever they want, and that has actually slowed them way down, they sometimes won't even use both coupons in the week and have a stash.
anyway, thanks for letting me journal in your comments lol. Thank you for this, and the boost to read your book which i bought on pre-sale and is in my TBR :)
ok so i just talked this out with the partner and he has reminded me that the kid HAS habituated to some degree, but seems to be stimulated by "newness". so the chocolate chips in the cupboard have gone untouched for awhile, but the candy sitting on the living room table because i am recovering from a hysterectomy is "new" and therefor he is more fixated on it. he is a dopamine seeking person and i think that will just always be the case. his habituation and regulation look different than the kid who doesn't need those constant hits.
thank you for providing these opportunities to think critically, without added stress and fear, and with a little levity and humour. i appreciate you! and this whole community :)
Just noting that I realized after publishing that this piece doesn't include much discussion of the research on sugar and specific health risks (diabetes, etc). Chapter 7 of FAT TALK has more on this, but we're also planning a future guide that looks at sugar and adults — and I'll get more into long-term health questions then.
The bottom line for kids is: No matter what the science says about long-term health risks of sugar, kids are at a far higher risk for eating disorders than diabetes and heart disease — so figuring out how to help them have a non-fraught relationship with sugar NOW protects their current health and, I'd argue, sets the stage for better long-term health too.
My ND husband rarely reads full books but he did read Chapter 7- Snack Monsters and Sugar Addicts and also Chapter 9- Straight White Dads on Diets and those were both very convicting for him. He has T1D and he does have to pay attention to carbs for dosing but I saw a lightbulb moment for him a month ago about how he was still viewing himself as lacking willpower and realizing we can all be healthy in any size body and enjoy our food. Thank you for all your work but especially Fat Talk, I am hopeful my kids will have a better relationship with food and with their bodies than I did. And I don’t think 20+ years of trying to be smaller is a good idea for anyone, I feel sad when I think about how long I wanted to be in a smaller body even if I wasn’t actively dieting.
Virginia, I'd love to see the adults and sugar guide, thanks for getting around to it!
Getting there, I promise!
One thing that is so helpful for me in your framing is that just because kids have ample access to sugar, it doesn’t mean they won’t still *love sugar.* Like sometimes I think I’m doing DoR wrong because sugary foods are still beloved in my kids’ eyes. I am definitely doing some of DoR wrong, fwiw, but I also think sometimes the culture of DoR tells us if you’re doing it right, your child will love broccoli and M&Ms with equal gusto. But there are so many factors influencing how our children view sugar--not just what happens in our homes--and almost all of those messages scream both SUGAR IS BAD and also SUGAR IS SPECIAL AND YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT! My kids DO in fact like both broccoli and M&Ms, but they’ll choose M&Ms over veggies any day, and it isn’t because they don’t have access to sugar in our home. They just like the damn M&Ms. They’re humans, after all; I too would rather have a milkshake than a salad, nine times out of 10.
In fact, on further reflection, sometimes I think the DoR-influenced local parenting culture where I live wants us to believe that if you DoR correctly, your child will PREFER broccoli over sugar. Which, as a goal, is diet culture BS itself, right??
YES. This is a huge problem with how DoR gets promoted on social media too (there's a link to an old piece about this). The goal isn't a kid who loves broccoli more than sugar. The goal is a kid who enjoys food on their own terms and doesn't feel stressed out by sugar.
Back in the '90s when I took a weight management class, the dietitian who taught it told us about a study where a group of people were given a bowl of apples as a snack. Some people ate them, others didn't. In the next phase of the study, the group was given both apples and chocolate chip cookies as snack options. This time, everyone ate the cookies and ignored the apples! According to the dietitian, this result meant that our preference was based in biology and there was not much we could do about that. It made me feel like less of a failure for preferring cookies!
Also just seems logical -- if I'm hungry, a cookie has more heft too it, and instinctively feels more filling?
Reminds me of all those people who claim that when they went “off sugar” they developed like, a taste for veggies and stuff in a way they haven’t before, like they couple taste new flavors or something. But I say as someone who has dabbled in incredibly restricted eating before, if you’re only letting yourself eat bland chicken and leafy veggies, of course you’re going to start finding enjoyment in the asparagus or the lettuce, your poor mind is probably desperately trying to find something interesting about the food you’re eating.
YES
As a mom to an 18 y/o, how I wish I had understood this years ago! I absolutely subscribed to the notion of sugar being the root of all evil and keeping my kid (and myself) far away from it. You do such a phenomenal job explaining things in a clear, compelling way. We’re now both in eating disorder recovery and your work has helped so much in unlearning all the crap diet culture taught me. I’m so grateful for you!
Sending good vibes your way to you and your kid, may you heal well and come out the other side stronger.
Thank you for this thorough guide! I feel ok about sugar in our house but I get overwhelmed by the amount of Halloween events now, it seems like we have at least 5 planned. Our experience with habituation is usually with Oreos, we now have lemon Oreos that have been unopened for 2 months after my kids liked them in late July! I also don’t like them, I prefer a regular double stuffed! We have regular access to ice cream at my in-laws house bc they have a deep freezer and getting ice cream at Grannys either after school or after dinner has been consistent for the past 4 years (they live across the street from us). Side note: we are adopting kittens from a sibling group where one was named Double Stuffed and I think that’s the cutest name for a black and white cat.
Oh that is the PERFECT kitten name.
This is so helpful! I wonder if you have any thoughts on how this attitude toward food can translate to an attitude toward screen time.
The idea that "restriction breeds fixation" helped convince me to try getting rid of my screen time limits and letting the kids play Switch and watch TV all they want (still limiting to 1 YouTube video a day, because algorithms and I don't want to watch with them all day). The caveat is that if we need them to do something or want to do something else with them and it's been awhile, we can tell them to stop. Because, like with food, they can always have more later.
I have a fear that they will lose the creativity and self-direction that being bored can bring, but so far, it's been working pretty well, and the older one, at least, is a lot more willing to help with stuff around the house.
I know that games have addictive properties that food doesn't, though I do still wonder about the addictive properties of preservatives, etc. big brands are putting in their snacks. But I think remembering that a little guidance is ok with both foods and screens could go a long way toward helping us avoid the addiction trap.
On a completely different subject, have you (or anyone else) heard about the new book ULTRA-PROCESSED PEOPLE: THE SCIENCE BEHIND FOOD THAT ISN'T FOOD by Chris van Tulleken? I heard him on WBUR's OnPoint recently and had lots of thoughts. I'd love to hear yours! Here's the episode: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/10/02/what-the-rise-of-ultra-processed-foods-means-for-our-health-and-our-society
Definitely check out the Devorah Heitner interview on the podcast -- a lot of good discussion of screen time and how to manage restriction in there! I do use screen time limits with my kids, but it's more to ease the transition when we inevitably need them to stop (to eat dinner or go to an activity)vs me wanting to really restrict how much screen time they get. We've definitely had phases of pretty unrestricted screen time and I do see them habituate and start doing other things after a few screen-heavy days. But I also think devices and apps are designed to be MUCH more addictive than food.
You have to listen to Jessica Wilson’s new podcast, Making It Awkward! And/or follow her on social media. She’s a dietitian and author of It’s Always Been Ours, and in addition to social media responses to a news report about that book, she’s been doing an extended series on the podcast about ultra processed food. She spent the month of September eating a diet of 80% UPFs, and compared her results to Van Tulleken’s 30 days of UPFs. Spoiler alert: she felt better than she had in ages. Part of the problem with UPFs is there is no standard definition of them, which is the focus of one of the episodes. I highly recommend her work!
Oh thanks for the rec! I loved her book and listened to her other podcast but I had no idea she’d started a new one. What a treat.
I LOVED It's Always Been Ours. I'll definitely check this stuff out. Thank you so much!
I’m interested to see any studies about this. Obviously I grew up with some screens (we did watch a lot of tv and did play video games) but we also were fortunate to be able to play outside, do sports/clubs, and have kids to play with. As an adult I will just naturally get bored watching too much YouTube or playing a video game after a while and switch to something else like reading or crafting but I wonder if that’s because I had the option growing up to do soooo many actives and kids these days don’t always have that option.
Interesting. I definitely did my homework in front of the television, which makes me cringe so hard now!
But also: I am fine.
FWIW, I love this advice for adults too! I think my boomer mom could get a lot out of a dinner where the after-dinner sweets were served with the savory parts of dinner!
I just like nice meals to take longer (like I enjoy that pause where everybody chats a bit before dessert comes out) but absolutely agree -- this can be a very useful strategy to help adults overcome treat fear too.
Yes, I agree that the meal taking longer can be nice! I think for my family it's more the meals with young grandkids that help my boomer mom especially rethink how she views treats/sugar/dessert.
This is great and I have a question! We had a no restrictions on sugar snacks in our house but had to start putting limits on it because our 7yo will only eat the snack food (cookies/candy/chips/gummies) and then not touch their meal. If this happened occasionally we wouldn’t mind but they just do not eat *any* of the food we prepare them because they fill up on the snacks every day. This isn’t something that they wore themselves out of, either, it went on for over a year before we placed some limits. Do you have any thoughts on this? Could it be because they are very very restricted at their dad’s house and are using mine as a place to counterbalance that?
Yes, this dynamic is super common (and SUPER TOUGH) in two household families with really different food cultures. I wrote about it last year and got some helpful advice from experts: https://virginiasolesmith.substack.com/p/spanx-in-family-court
Thank you!
I’m not V, but it does sound like your 7yo has safety and freedom about food at your house that they may not have at their other parent’s house. That is very tricky to navigate!
I think it’s really important to separate how we feel about sugar from behaviors around foods with sugar. I stopped restricting sugar treats years ago and it took a couple years! for my feelings around sugar treats to normalize and not feel like I want a ton of it all the time. But behaviorally to many people especially those invested in diet culture there isn’t a noticeable difference in my consumption between my early non-restrictive sugar treat eating and my eating now. I have sugar treats both before and after meals. I don’t consider serving sizes. I eat sugar treats multiple times a day. And I’m fine with this. It feels enjoyable and good for me. If the goal is to get to some behavior that looks like restriction (or “moderation”), that’s still diet culture.
Exactly!
This made me realize I need to go buy a jar of M&Ms! I like to mix the peanut and regular ones.
Also, as a non-parent preparing for Halloween, what are the candies I should get that will make me the ~*cool*~ house?
PEANUT BUTTER CUPS. They are the most coveted in my house, anyway! Also Snickers.
I love Take Five bars. I only seem to see them at Halloween. I also love Kit Kats, m and m and peanut butter cups ( especially the ones shaped like a pumpkin). I also think there is one person in every household that prefers sour candy, spit patch kids etc.
oooo the holiday shaped reeses are so good
Re ultimate chocolate snack mix,best ever is avail only at Easter time: Reese’s pieces eggs and Cadbury eggs (the small chocolate ones w candy coating) perfect mix.
Caramel m&ms!!!!
We live right downtown in a busy city but our exact street doesn't get a ton of trick or treaters so one year I bought full sized candy bars and it was the best feeling to be the house giving out full sized bars!
We've done this because we get less than 20 kids! I
we get around 500 kids which is AMAZING but also i will never know this joy. Even if i did a "happy hour" of full size bars it would be SO MANY lol
I’m just here to say that we too are a chocolate chip pancakes on the weekend family :)
Oh we're a chocolate chip pancakes every day family! (We buy the frozen kind so I just have to microwave them, not make them from scratch.)
Wait...5-9 Oreos isn’t a serving? :D
It honestly is!
Thank you so much for this guide - I feel like I just need to re-read this once a week or something. This is the hardest aspect of diet culture for me to completely let go of. I keep treats around the house and also serve dessert at most meals, but I still have an internal struggle with wanting to control how much is the right amount.
I rarely feel bad for eating whatever amount I want these days, but haven't worked out how to relax about the kids, at least partly because they're still little (my youngest is 2). Is age a legit concern or just an extension of "don't give your kid sugar in the first year"-type advice?? Have you always taken the same approach of kids helping themselves to how much they want?
This is a great question. I do think younger kids may need a bit more scaffolding — like they’ll take 100 cookies just because they like stacking them on their plate not because that’s how many they know they want to eat. So at that age, I might do more assisting with the serving — “here are two cookies, there are plenty more if you finish those!” So you’re still putting them in charge of how much but helping them tune into that “how much.” But it’s also true that a younger sibling will see how older siblings eat and want to do that — which is why those “no sugar under age whatever” rules are such a mess! And I think there can be a lot of value in letting kids model for each other vs us directing it all.
Definitely check out Laura Thomas’s work on all of this — she is actively parenting a toddler (I’m a few years out) and is a dietitian so will have much better/more specific advice!
Ooo thank you that is super helpful! I haven't come across Laura Thomas, will go check her out 👍
Oh and she's London-based, like me! Exciting
Growing up we had a lot of like, diet soda and low calorie foods and snacks and tbh I guess I like those things now because I grew up on them. But I still eat sugary cereal and Taco Bell and fruit rolls up when I feel like it cause I’m an adult and I like it. My mom does feel bad she modeled bad eating behavior around us growing up, especially now that she sees the way my brother models it for his kids. Him and his wife are very much into keto, intermittent fasting, having shakes for meals, avoiding sugar type people. They let the kids eat “kid foods” but I bet the kids see what their parents are doing and how they keep losing weight and getting smaller and smaller. (My parents and I joke that when we visit my brother we have to order Uber eats because he has no food in the house that isn’t like, kid portions of yogurt and pb&j, which is actually true since they skip breakfast & lunch and just make dinner for us adults). I’m trying my best to model healthy behaviors with eating and my body when I see my niblings but I don’t see them much.
Agh. That's so tough!
I really appreciate what you said here about the word "treats". I got a little in my head about the word and it's implications a few weeks ago when I realized I'd been describing cookies/candy to my 2 year old that way and he started asked for treats, but you're exactly right-- they are a treat! And it's ok to recognize that, and it doesn't have to breed the same reverence/terror of sugar that it could in different circumstances.
THANK YOU!!
i am so thankful that i divested from diet culture before the kids were born (actually losing weight in pregnancy and after delivery because i was VERY sick and being HAPPY about it officially got me thinking straight) - but of course....sugar and kids!
We have twins, which is always a great experiment in nature vs nurture. One guy is totally regulated and habituated when it comes to treats, but my dopamine seeker? ALWAYS wanting EVERYTHING, and MORE! So we have gone back and forth on restricting and now are once again in a weird place of arbitrarily saying yes or no and i hate it.
I do think that we still worry he will only eat treats (which isn't true, and we are always helping him build plates that include protein and other nutrients) but also he will eat all of our good stuff. We started hiding our stash and buying a little less (we all love treats) and maybe that is the answer? Like this kid is 10 and will still eat a tablespoon of sugar while baking, after having doused his cinnamon toast brunch in chocolate syrup, and then beg to go get slurpees (and he will want to two fist the biggest ones because it is FUN lol).
We also have trouble with pop because they (both) never seemed to habituate to that and would drink it all, fast. they now get two tickets a week to "spend" on a can of pop whenever they want, and that has actually slowed them way down, they sometimes won't even use both coupons in the week and have a stash.
anyway, thanks for letting me journal in your comments lol. Thank you for this, and the boost to read your book which i bought on pre-sale and is in my TBR :)
ok so i just talked this out with the partner and he has reminded me that the kid HAS habituated to some degree, but seems to be stimulated by "newness". so the chocolate chips in the cupboard have gone untouched for awhile, but the candy sitting on the living room table because i am recovering from a hysterectomy is "new" and therefor he is more fixated on it. he is a dopamine seeking person and i think that will just always be the case. his habituation and regulation look different than the kid who doesn't need those constant hits.
thank you for providing these opportunities to think critically, without added stress and fear, and with a little levity and humour. i appreciate you! and this whole community :)