Do you have "junk" food in your house on a regular basis?

No not really unless it's for something specific, but I don't really have a sweet tooth so it wouldn't even occur to me to go down those aisles in the supermarket. When I shop I usually just buy the ingredients for meals and plenty of fresh fruit for snacking, along with things like bread, eggs, yoghurt, cheese. Real food basically!

My daughter is only 4 so she hasn't really started asking for much, apart from ice cream if we are out which I always say yes to.

I haven't thought much about how we will handle her wanting more junk food when she's older, but we've just been away for the week with some friends who are 'don't restrict anything, let them learn self regulation' people and I found it WILD. They (adults and kids under 10) were constantly drinking cans of fizzy drink, kids snacking on those packets of sugar that come with a lolly you dip into it and other sweets and biscuits. To be fair, one of them really does seem to be able to regulate herself well and would stop part way through eating a donut if she was full but the other just seemed to guzzle shite all week. We would take our water bottles out with us on day trips whereas they'd take a load of cans of pop. I'm not a judgmental person and I understand the logic behind it but I'm not sure that approach is for us.

I honestly think that some people are just lucky that they can resist that kind of food, I'm one of them. I don't feel like I'm restricting myself by not buying it because I genuinely don't even care about it. It has to be luck/genetics when you think about how they literally plough millions into designing these foods to be super palatable and addictive, bypassing all your body's internal regulatory systems to make you overeat (yes I've read ultra processed people!). My parents brought me and my sister up eating lots of homecooked, whole foods and although there was other stuff around it wasn't unlimited and they were big on balance and yes, some things were treats. I've got no food issues. My sister on the other hand is obsessed with being as skinny as possible and is constantly fighting her sweet tooth.

I always have snacks and treat foods but try to make them good quality

my parents didn’t have a sweet chocolate drawer and I don’t have a sweet tooth.

I agree with this, I’m in my 30s now and have 2 children and we have a chocolate drawer at home. It was the same when we grew up and I don’t consider it the forbidden fruit, can quite easily regulate what sweets to eat etc! Who knows if it wasn’t in the house what I would be like now!

I don't like them. I buy parsnips, sweet potatoes etc instead.

We actually don’t.

I’m on Mounjaro and DH isn’t a bit junk lover, so we just don’t buy it.

Children are none the wiser!

But you wouldn't buy potatoes? I thought they'd be considered ok if you are clean eating?

Not necessarily keto. Keto would want to be less than 20g carbs a day and my carb intake is regularly 50-70g so I would say, possibly low carb, but more clean eating, I guess?

For example, there are 'keto' bars and cereals you can buy but I wouldn't buy them because they are still processed foods.

So a keto diet then?

Hi, no I don't live alone and I eat meat, eggs, fish, non starchy vegetables and fats like butter, olive oil, tallow, coconut oil, avocado, avocado oil etc.

I make desserts using coconut flour, almond flour, cocoa powder. I make my own butter, ketchup (which I rarely eat) mayo and peanut butter etc.

Unless I cook from scratch, we only have ingredients!

Do you live alone? What do you eat?

Wow, they would absolutely hate my house. I don't have grains, carbohydrates of any kind including potatoes, seed oils, processed food of any sort including chocolate, cereals, porridge, anything at all.

There are NO convenience foods in my house. Oh, that's not true 100%. I do have a bag of ice I bought and did not create and freeze myself.

The only exception is the last few weeks I've been on a VLCD via New You Plan, which I do NOT consider healthy or long term, so exiting that in just over 3 weeks from now. Temporary route to a particular goal.

Show them this post and maybe they will consider themselves lucky! But, they are already lucky because it sounds like you are looking after them!

We do, we don’t see certain foods as treats or forbidden, our range is more limited due to allergies etc, but we don’t ban any type of food.

I believe in everything in moderation and whilst I generally prefer savoury food, I love (and would miss) something sugary in the morning.
I also think the odd packet of crisps is fine ( they’re so small nowadays) that it’s not an issue.
Your meals sound DELICIOUS though!! And homemade focaccia especially

Love how a big long list of breakfast choices, akin to what you would find in a hotel or b+b for breakfast on a menu is 'restriction'

Only here would someone make such a laughable comment.

I try to cook decent meals but rushing round with work all the time doesnt make it possible. Id say half the week at least he eats something like chicken goujons from the freezer with pasta/rice/waffles etc. We do have a snack cupboard too.
The other day i brought my 13 year old some iced finger buns when I went shopping, I took them up to him in his room thinking he would have one or two. Went back up later and he'd eaten the whole packet!!

Isn’t this what pocket money is for?

My parents were very much like you and as soon as I had my own place and access to my own money, my diet basically did a complete 180.

Interestingly I was talking to my mum not so long ago about food and she admits she wishes they’d been less strict about what I was allowed to eat.

She who pays the bills makes the rules.
If you don’t want to buy treat food it is up to you.
Your teenagers can buy their own treats if they get pocket money or get a part time job.

I do think that the op sounds a bit overbearing on this, everything in moderation surely? particularly due to the ages of her DC. Mine have access to a snack whenever they want they are all very partial to crisps and kinder chocolate , they eat loads of food generally ( I cook everyday from scratch and they always have fruit and veg) they are all teenage girls and a size 4 or 6. So I don’t think them being able to have a treat food if they fancy one is making them obese.

when I read the comment about the film night I did wonder where the OPs relationship and control around food has come from tbh.

DH said he was ravenously hungry as a teenager playing sport

I have a sporty teenage ds and they do get incredibly hungry. He can eat a huge meal and declare that he's starving and needs more. It's important imo to not compare their hunger with your own. I'm a middle aged short sedentary woman...I don't think it would be fair of me to compare my own food needs to his

Gosh this was us too! My mum was like OP, we went to uni and ate non stop junk because we could. We calmed down, eat healthily now, but none of us bring our kids up in an environment with no junk as we see how damaging it is. It just leads to a junk food obsession.

A previous poster noted a lot of what DH and I buy - cheese, dips, crisps, rice cakes, biscuits, chocolate, yoghurt, orange juice and fruit. Very different to what I had growing up. It was weetbix for breakfast and a simple meal for lunch. Then if I was hungry we had more cereal or toast later in the day. Any treats were outside the house. I spent pocket money on crisps and chocolate though.

DH said he was ravenously hungry as a teenager playing sport. He also did not have snack luxury items growing up.

DC is a toddler now. We offer a range of foods and keep the sweets in moderation. DC does not have my sweet tooth however which is good!

The risk you run is that your kids could end up doing what I did when I moved out at 18. Food was heavily regulated in our house into ‘healthy and allowed’ and ‘unhealthy and not allowed’ so when I moved out I had a really hard time with self control and put on 25lbs in a year because I went mad eating all the things that had previously been restricted—like sweet cereals, pastries and chocolate. I’m now very much middle aged and STILL struggle with food, which therapy has revealed to be about restriction and taboo.

We have crisps chocolate bars sweets squash and fizzy drinks

I also buy fresh fruit and veg and lunch could be a sandwich , chopped apple /peppers/grapes/cucumber but then crisps cheese chocolate yog etc

yes dd wouid happily eat chocolate waffles every breakfast but she knows she can’t so one day will have waffle. Another fruit and toast - another cereal

weekend might be bacon butty if I want one and cba to make it. Or scrambled egg/sausage

she has squash. Equally has water or god forbid lemonade and fizzy drinks and not in double figures yet 😉

variety is the key and saying no. Not that today. You need to have this