Well I live in a household with a small child. There are many selections of foods for him to eat from meat, veggies, fruit, sugar snacks. He eats his meals and doesn't really snack that often. Maybe once a day. His weight is fine, infact he could gain a few. So I don't see a problem with him being allowed these foods. I was raised the same and never had weight problems until I came down with depression and anxiety and was out of the house living within 5 miles of every fast food joint. My brothers raised the same also and both are underweight. I guess I'm wondering what is the harm with sugar if it's a snack once or twice a day, with 3 other nutritious meals that don't contain sugar. I do understand if a child has a weight problem yes you should change their eating habits.

I was thinking maybe when I have kids to raise them on fruits, veggies, meat, whole grains and no sugar. Well my neighbor has done this with her children since they were young. Well one of her children comes play and has been caught several times going into the freezer (which is outside no room inside for that) and we find out he has eaten 5-7 treats. Well of course he is not used to eating this so he ends up sick at our house in the restroom for an hour. I'm not asking what to do about him, that's his mother's problem. But my mother has taken as much as she could and put it inside to limit the child to 1. I doubt his mother even cares what he eats at our house since she leaves him at my house for 8-10 hours, and if he wasn't sent home I'm not sure she would call!(sorry that's beside the point). I'm just concerned if I raised my kids like that when they would see sugar like he does they would go ballistic and go overboard like that. The few times his brothers have come over they did the same. One is 13 yr old I would think he wouldn't do that. I'm so confused if how to raise my kids foodwise when I have them. I don't want to raise them without sugar then once they taste it have them binge on it. The reality is that no one can watch their children 24 hours a day, they do go places without you.

What is everyone's opinion?

I prefer to keep treats around for occasional snacking for my son. The majority of his food choices are healthy, so the sugar isn't a real problem. My nieces and nephews are in VERY strict households as far as diet is concerned, and will go to ANY lengths to get the "forbidden fruit" like the other kids get...including sneaking into town on their bikes to get candy with their allowance (at least they get exercise!) and trick-or-treating EVERY house in town, WELL past the age most kids do...and eating it ALL in two days or less!!!

IMHO, if kids are presented healthy choices and not TAUGHT to desire the "junk", they'll balance it out in the long run. Supervision and education, of course are essential in all aspects of parenting, but nutrition especially...if you see a young child starting to make bad choices, it's better to teach them better choices and lead by example, rather then just forbid certain foods..

I believe that a certain amount of "junk" should
be allowed. my parents restricted the junk and I sought it out as soon as I could.

my daughter is turning 5 and is very small, but
I am concerned about her diet, as she is a carb
hound (pasta is her favorite). but then again
she will eat 2 bites of a cookie and thats it.
Also she knows that "french fries are bad for you and are just a treat"

my son will eat everything and it makes it easier.
I know his diet is well balanced. I think that will
help him when he is older, i.e. liking the veggies
and fruits and salads, unlike my daughter. Even
though she is thin now, I do sometimes worry
that her pickiness will cause problems later in life.

But back on topic, I believe that having some sweets or junk, as long as the majority of the
diet is well balanced is fine. a few trips to
fast food a month is ok in my book , as well as keeping the snacks on hand; if not they will
get it elsewhere.

I think balance is a good idea. At a young age fruits are still sweet, so keep piles of that around. Do have a special treat they can have occasionaly though. For my son we get the splenda sweetened blue bunny icecream bars. On days he's not in school he can have one when he wakes up from nap. He is also allowed a free cookie when we go to the grocery store, and occasional jello.

With holidays such as halowwen and so on, he's not allowed to pig out, rather he can choose to have 1 piece of candy that day for his treat. He's happy because he gets the candy, I'm happy because he's not eating himself sick, and most ends up going stale and being tossed

Then of course he goes to his dad's and has lucky charms for dinner, bug juice, poptarts and so on, and don't get me started on school lunches. Realisticly you won't be able to cut sugar out of your child's life completely because there will always be school, friends houses, holidays, and the worst offender "relatives". Better to teach them moderation and make sure they have healthy alternatives as much as possible

Same here. As soon as I could make my own decisions on food, I started making all the wrong ones. But then again, my brother and sister who were raised in the same house with the same rules are thin and both of them eat very healthy, balanced diets. And my other brother and I got the eating disorders. Go figure. So it's the old "nature-or-nurture" argument once again...

I don't have any kids, but my dogs get lots of treats (their favorite by far are "Dogwiches" -- they LOVE those!!) and LOTS of exercise (which helps mom a lot).

Jeannie

It's all about teaching them choices and how that affects what they may or may have later. With my stepkids, I try to strike a balance between the amount of fruit or veggies they have vs. the sugar. They have always been allowed to eat whatever they want by their mother and now the older one has to be on a diet because she is obese for her age. She is on a modified Atkins, but I still try to maintain the balance - no Atkins icecream unless you've had your veggies for the day. If they have a soda at lunch, then they can't have one with dinner. It seems to work out, and I haven't seen them binge when we go to parties or heard complaints from friend's parents.

I strongly agree that kids should "learn" how to eat sweets and "forbidden" foods. When I was kid, we were NEVER allowed sugar foods, cookies, soda, chips, ice cream, and I mean NEVER. Hence, I am an addict...can't eat a little...its the whole bag or nothing. As a child I had friends who had candy/junk all over their house and they rarely if ever touched it. They didn't feel like it would be gone forever. Their Halloween candy would last months until they threw it away and mine would be gone before I got home...lol! To this day, I partly blame my relationship with junk food based on the fact that it was forbidden as a child.

I say it can be part of a very healthy diet in moderation.

Get sneaky too

Broccoli icecream was a desaster, but we learned that chicken and spinich on a pizza work. Now I'm just trying to convince him to eat salad like the gopher on his jump start game.

I try to keep snacks around that my son likes that are healthy. Luckily, he likes raw and cooked veggies, yogurt and some cheese. I don't buy any junk food or soda of any kind, so dh and son are on their own. While I won't keep the stuff in the house, I will let him have a soda when we go out and don't go nuts when he eats junk when he is at other people's houses. I want him to experience that he doesn't have to have all the junk at home, doesn't have to buy it, etc. Also, I agree w/ the other posters, I only cook one meal, and will add a carb side dish that I don't eat. So far, so good.

You know I always had any food I wanted and I agree about holiday candy. My mom always had to throw most of it away, we never pigged out on it. I rememeber every Easter each of us had huge chocolate bunnies - we would take a bite off the ear and put it in the fridge and it was never touched again with most of the rest of the candy. It was always there no reason to pig out! I'm now thinking I will raise my children with healthy choices but also have other choices in the house so that they may have that sometimes also. From what I have seen and read here it seems the kids who are forbidden sugar completely go crazy when they do get a hold of it.

One of my cousins had 8 children. For years they were raised with junk foods occasionally, at least a little candy now and then, or some home made cake. These kids were vibrant, healthy and active. They looked alive, and even though they weren't super intelligent, they weren't dummies, either.

The cousin later decided she was going on a health food kick. She had some physical problems, and while I don't blame her at all for trying to find a diet to help her get over them, what she did to her children was absolutely unbelievable.

The children were never allowed any more candy, all cakes had to be home made with whole wheat flour and honey, etc., etc., etc.

When it came holiday time, every one of those kids would line up and eat all of the candies and deserts at the functions. Not only that, but they became dull, listless and lethargic. Those kids basically dumbed down. It was a shame, to say the least.

It's my opinion, based on what I've seen with those kids, my own and others, that children need a healthy level of carbohydrates. They are growing and it takes a lot of energy to meet that growth, and not all of that energy can be found in high-fiber, low-carb foods.

My own son is 5-1/2. Everyone else in the house is eating LC. He pretty much gets what he wants, as long as it's within reason. For a treat today he had a 'Kid's Cuisine', while I shuddered at the high carbs that are packed into each one of those. Later on, I caved in to his wanting a maple bar. The thing is, he's a very healthy child, not lean, but not fat, either--just a nice little buffer zone.

He doesn't always get goodies and sweet things, and he's a very healthy eater. He loves salads, broccoli, most meats, so on and so forth. But, he's got to have his 'junk' too, LOL.

My kids are now 15, 17, and 20 and are all tall and lean. They are active in marching bands at their respective schools (1 at Ga Tech and 2 in high school) and get plenty of exercise. None has ever had a weight problem.

When they were little I was pretty strict with "snacks", always providing healthy ones for them. That's not to say they never got treats. On the contrary, they got snacks daily at their preschools that weren't always healthy (cookies, chips, etc.), similar snacks were provided at church functions, etc. The only thing was we didn't have that kind of junk in excess at home. They couldn't just get cookies or chips whenever they felt like it, but if they had eaten a good balanced meal then they were allowed a cookie or two as dessert, but not as an everyday habit. To this day they all have healthy eating habits, with snacks in moderation. They never overindulged because they didn't have easy access to snacks. They associate treats with special occasions, which I feel should be the environment for treats. The view of "treats" (ie, junk foods, candy, etc.) as a daily right is partly responsible for the increase in the % of overweight children and adults. When I was growing up treats were just that, treats for special occasions, not something you had every day (or for some, with every meal).

I was the same way with TV - my kids still to this day ask permission to turn on the TV! And all started reading at age 4, are on the honor roll at school, and two of them have ACT scores of 31 or higher (the third hasn't taken it yet). But they don't overindulge on TV now because I wouldn't let them watch it as a kid - more often than not both my sons are lying around in front of the TV reading books.

I guess that maybe I'm a little radical about this, but if I had it to do over again I would have been as strict with food choices, maybe even more so. I think it has worked in a positive way for my family.

Joan

Did any of you read the low carb online magazine? Somewhere it said a mother who was on Atkins decided the child was also(didn't say the child was over weight) and at a party the child was not allowed even one candy. I found that pretty harsh, did anyone else? I think some parents restrict food out of concern for the children's health, but I also think some parents are like well if I have to suffer so does everyone else. I mean one candy at a party? Not trying to stir anything up, I just think that's a bit extreme.