DH buys loads of sweets

YABU, sorry.

Anyone else struggling to believe in all these kids who would rather reach for a grape than the freely available chocolate / sweets 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I usually have chocolate in the house and in this weather ice creams too .
I wouldn’t scare young children over this but I’d definitely closely supervise teeth brushing.
( I have dental issues myself )

when they were handing out common sense you weren’t in the queue, were you?

I haven't voted as you both seem to be extreme.

I'd say he is enabling an addiction to 'needing' sweets every day, and you are setting them up for eating disorders with your extreme views.
You need to communicate with each other and reach a compromise.

I totally understand how frustrating that can be.
Try having a gentle, honest conversation with him — let him know it’s hard for you and the kids to resist when those treats are always around.
You can suggest bringing sweets only on special occasions, or swap them with healthier snacks you can all enjoy.
It’s not about control — it’s about support. And if he cares, he’ll listen.

This.

Fear of food or elements of food is a sign there's disordered thinking going on.

Oh now I want some sweets..

I think your eating disorder has made you over-anxious about food. It sounds to me as if you not only have hang-ups around weight not also some orthorexic tendencies. Worrying about ‘chemicals’ is meaningless. Everything is a chemical, including water and air. All the daily vitamins and minerals you need are chemicals. Most of the long words you see in ingredients lists, and lots of E-numbers. are natural substances you’d find in ‘healthy’ food too. For example ‘E300’ is vitamin C. ‘Asorbic acid’ is also vitamin C.

I think it's finding the middle ground. Nothing is inherently bad in my book, it's how much you have them. We have sweets or treats every day but only after dinner, though we do have some biscuits like fig rolls around the rest of the time. All of us are a healthy weight, it's part of our diet. My aunt banned chocolate, pop etc and my cousins would go mad every time they visited family - in the long run I think it made them more rebellious at seeking forbidden treats out of the house, rather than having a healthier relationship with them. My kids do like fruit snacks that seem like treats, eg raisins, YoYos.

I would hate that. We simply never had stuff like that in the house and we have actually never once bought our kids sweets. They had chocolate now and then, but sweets, never.

I don’t really understand parents that introduce things like sweets, it’s not like children automatically want them. Skittles, by the way are absolutely awful - 75% sugar and chock full of chemical crap. Giving children ultra processed rubbish is not ‘treating’ them and your husband sounds nuts.

My BiL had a mum who used to buy them huge quantities of sweets weekly. He’s had a lifelong problem as a result and craves and ‘secret eats’ them. Oh, and he has shocking teeth.

As a diabetic, I say please stop letting them have so many sweets. The damage builds up over many years. Can you hide them and just bring out a few at a time? 6 packs a week IS excessive and not even a treat really as it’s just expected by the children and husband

My sympathies are with you. I didn’t buy my three children any sweets, biscuits or cake as they are simply not part of a healthy diet. They used to get a birthday cake and I didn’t stop them eating sweets they were given. It’s too easy to get addicted to sugar which causes all kinds of problems in the long term. They are now all in their twenties, slim, beautiful and healthy. Your children will thank you in the long run.

As someone who has had to massively change their diet due to illness. It’s not about calories in v calories out, it’s about eating nutrient rich wholesome foods to support our bodies. It is so important children have a good diet, their bodies need to get them through life and will be passed through to their generation. If a chocolate bar was deconstructed, would parent allow their children to eat spoonfuls of sugar on their own? When they could have a banana with maybe a drizzle of honey?
From someone who has scrutinised their diet, it really makes me wonder if my previous way of eating has played a part in my illness. Nutrient dense foods are the way forward to support our bodies. @candyhandy-I'm with you on this, a little in moderation is fine, maybe chocolate Tuesdays (I used to have wine Wednesdays 😂) but definitely not used as a regular snack food so YANBU. What you are telling them about rotten teeth, they learn in school when they are old enough and by then too late and the treat habit has been formed… and the dentist will thank you! DH needs to keep the sweets and chocolate at work, or in the car, or the shed!

I think I’ve mentioned this on here before. I grew up with a mother who passed her issues around food on to me. I have struggled with food and my weight all my life.

I made a very conscious decision to break the cycle with my son.
We didn’t talk about food much at all and if so only in a “protein does this, fibre does that” kind of way. (And yes I felt like a prat, but hey ho!) We didn’t allow others to talk about his food choices, either. When he was full I took his word for it. Sweets, chocolates, ice cream or cake were allowed. As a result he knows when he’s full. Chooses fruit over treats for a snack, but won’t deny himself a sweet if he fancies it. He is scarily self-limiting for a 12 year old. He exercises because to him it’s a fun past time not because I guilt tripped him into it.

Kindly, I believe you and your husband need to find a middle ground and please, please stop lecturing your kids. I KNOW you mean well, but it will backfire spectacularly.

I’d suggest changing the way you lecture your kids to avoid eating disorders developing

^^ yes! It’s that easy -that’s why there’s virtually no obesity in the U.K. - everyone chooses a piece of fruit over a bar of chocolate

My kid has sweets /choc in the house all the time. It's not hidden and is readily available in the house and doesn't really need to be asked for.

Saying that, as its not a 'banned food' 9 times out of 10 they will first ask for the watermwlon/grapes/mini cucumbers/ pomegranate seeds/ yoghurt etc

There is no fear of having to make them last or make the most of them as they're not a treat. They're just there.

Child is low weight and tall and eats a massive mix of foods as all available all the time

A family member that does the opposite has two obese children as they go nuts whenever these things are on offer and will literally eat them until they're sick. They will 'sneak' multipacks and eat them all when no one's looking because they don't know when they might get another 'treat'

Please stop scaring your children about sweets. Everything in moderation.

Parenting is about compromise, at the moment you are both holding to extreme positions, and that’s unhelpful and confusing the children. It is unfortunate that you’ve obviously tried to float a compromise and your husband is not listening. Neither of you will agree with 100% of the others views, but you need to meet in the middle on this. If he refuses to listen, start throwing the sweets and chocolates in the bin until he gets the message that he needs to start engaging.

Who is eating these sweets?

If it's your DH, essentially they need to be kept in a box or tin in a high cupboard out of reach of the DC. He's an adult, his diet and dental health are his responsibility.

If it's the DC and he's refusing to listen, I'd quietly put 2/3 of the sweets in the bin immediately when they enter the house and leave a reasonable amount to be enjoyed at suitable intervals, like straight after a meal (much less harmful to teeth than sweets being freely available and picked at throughout the day).

Stop talking to the kids about sweets and treats being bad for them if they choose to have them. That's not something they should have to deal with. You and your DH should be providing them with a healthy diet, including a moderate amount of "treat" food, which they can then just enjoy. They shouldn't have to put up with guilt and fear around food because you and your DH have inconsistent approaches.

No one should be eating sweets all the time but your DH is an adult so he can do whatever he likes. Does he think it’s ok for your kids to eat sweets all the time? Your language is quite problematic though - you need to consider what you are passing on to your kids.

I’d drop the line about fat but the rest of it’s fine. My mum educated us about E numbers and UPFs before it was a thing. And sugar ruining teeth was drummed into us - more by dentists and school than parents.

Occasionally, we’d have them at parties, I remember buying some after swimming, but my mum never bought sweets in the supermarket.

My mum used to speak that way to me about food and had similar approach- I have struggled massively with my diet and body image as a result.

You say you eat normally now but you're lecturing perfectly healthy children about getting fat. It sounds like you still have some ingrained issues around how you perceive certain foods that you're projecting without realising.

Obviously kids need to understand that there are some foods that provide more for our bodies than others - but that's how it should be framed. You describe your kids as looking scared by how you're providing their information about food. That should never be the case.

My ds is 2.5 and obviously due to my own issues I have spent a lot of time reading and researching the best ways to ensure he has a healthy relationship with food and his body and even now I provide sweet treats along with his meal but in appropriate portion sizes. We talk about how certain food has a job to do to take care of our bodies (ie carrots help make our eyes strong and milk makes our bones strong) and some food is just for fun but we can't fill up on that- we need to keep space for the food that takes care of us. I ensure his portions are a decent size for his age, that I use positive language around food and that I make sure he's getting plenty of fruit, veg, dairy etc that he needs at this age. I'm aiming for him to grow up learning that sweet treats are available, but how to prioritise what his body needs without judgement or fear.