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

We buy crisps, chocolate hobnobs, cereal bars ( I know some people think they’re healthy but they have a lot of sugar ), fig rolls and honey nut cornflakes once a month
So one pack of cereal, a few boxes of cereal bars, 2 packs of biscuits and a bag of 12 mixed crisps. For 5 adults ( 3x dc in their 20s when they’re home from Uni )
We don’t buy fizzy drinks but do all have wine with a meal a few times a week
We don’t buy ready meals

We only buy junk once a month and when they’re gone they’re gone

No one winges about there being no junk because they know we won’t be the ones buying it more than we already do

We’ve never made a big deal out of food and what we eat but it’s always homemade, veggie with lots of fruit in bowls around the house. Our dcs are healthy eating adults and conscious of eating plenty of fruit veg. Tbh now they’re older I’ve noticed the hobnobs are still around after a week whereas in their teen years they wouldn’t last a day

We do buy masses of crap for Christmas and Easter 🥳

I was like you OP. The one exception I made was that I used to buy everyone a bar of chocolate for Friday night. I never stopped them having crisps / chocolate / biscuits at other times, but they would have to buy them out of their own money if they wanted them. Mine are now adults and they choose to eat well, both enjoy cooking.

I always have a variety of snacks available, my kids go through phases - sometimes I’m having to replace cheese and crackers, sometimes crisps and chocolate. My DS has just started high school and I fully expect an initial flurry of chips for lunch because of the novelty of bringing able to buy his own but I also know he’ll settle back into more healthy choices. I try not to get too opinionated about what they eat, my DD had a stage of very restricted eating so getting the balance right between healthy eating and enjoying all kinds of food is important in my house.

Hmm, I di think that kids will eat junk when available

We have around 70/30 healthy/junk

I don't really eat the junk food myself but the kids do like it. And it is less of a battle to get them to eat veggies etc if they do occasionally have pizza/chicken nuggets or whatever

Yes, I always have some junk food in the house, but I also have lots of healthy food. Also the healthy food outweighs the unhealthy.
Currently have some monster munch, chocolate bars, frubes, cheesestrings, oreo's and sweets. Although, I'm lucky that my 7yo is quite restrained. I offered her a chocolate bar or an apple after dinner, and she chose the apple. It's also very rare we have fizzy drinks in the house, and mostly drink water or tea - and gin for me!

I always have crisps - they’re my weakness, and my husband will always buy biscuits but he is the only one who really eats them. I have teens and only one has a sweet tooth. My children were never allowed fizzy drinks and as a result my eldest (18) will only drink water as anything else is far too sweet for him.

We have crisps, chocolate, sweets, biscuits always. Kids have to ask for junk food, and I either say yes or no. We always have fruit and healthier snacks which they can help themselves to as much as they like. But the junk food requires permission otherwise they just eat it all. School holidays I am a bit more relaxed too.

We have a snack box with biscuits, crackers and things like wagon wheels in. We don't buy crisps regularly at the request of the teens because they were just eating them for the sake of it.
We also cook healthy meals from scratch and both dc can cook. We rarely buy fizzy drinks or sweets, but the dc do buy those things for themselves sometimes.
Ds19 has just finished his first year at uni and has cooked a pretty wide range of meals for himself, as well as eating a fair amount of Dominoes. He is quite lazy, but also likes to eat well.
Much as I like the idea of raising teenage children who will choose a piece of fruit and a chicken salad over a pizza and bar of chocolate, I think it's probably unrealistic - but, if they've been taught the principles of a balanced diet they will go back to it.

I think there is a lot of space between not allowing children to have snacks and having them always available. And i refuse to call bread sticks and rice cakes treats. But I don't see you as restricting anything. They can use their pocket money if they want treats more often and not having a chocolate bar available at all times does not mean they will go crazy once they live alone.

I also find the idea of choices interesting here. So providing coco pops is providing choices, but would we be talking about a terrible household that does not provide the option of daily Greek youghurt?

We have lots of snacks in the house but the kids hardly eat it daily - we’ve never restricted them so they’re not crazy about stuff like that. They might have a packet of crisps once a week. Today they had ice cream and a packet of crisps - all in moderation.

I think it’s a mistake calling foods that you don’t eat often treats

we have crisps/biscuits and chocolate at home and ds knows he can have them but not all the time and he eats a balanced diet he isn’t craving naughty/treat foods

he did a few years ago go through a phase of eating a lot of junk food (after school) but this has thankfully passed and something all his friends seemed to go through

I'm not getting how your need to have food to accompany a film, or the food you like, is any different from @FurForksSake's.

You never had snacks on movie night? We like some crisps, sweets and choc in movie night!

My DD9 loves a healthy snack plate (cucumber, berries, carrot sticks, crackers etc) but she does also like crisps and biscuits. We always have some in but they will last a while so I don't have to restock weekly. Tend to have (on rotation) Seabrook crisps, hula hoops, space raiders then some of those mini biscuits packs - shortbread, cookies, party rings. Rarely have bought baked stuff in as would just make a cake.

She will often choose fruit or veg ove biscuits or crisps which I think is great. I remember taking her to the shop for a 'treat' once and she choose a pink lady apple!

We rarely have fizzy drinks in the house as just prefer squash so she associates fizzy drinks with eating out

No, it’s not a lie. Did I say my child never had crisps etc? No, I didn’t. Of course they did - they had them at parties, picnics etc. We bought sweets etc as an occasional treat. But I never bought those things to keep at home as day to day snacks.

Loool it’s in the house but our kids can’t have it. Sorry over 18s only for the Finders Crispy Pancakes and Jalapeño poppers.

We have friends who don’t have any sweets, cakes or chocolate at home. I’ve witnessed her kids at parties etc and they go mad, stuffing every little bit they can get.
We don’t really have sugary cereal at home, but have always had crisps, chocolate, biscuits and ice cream available. Son is now 20. He never went mental with it, maybe a chocolate bar or some ice cream once a day, he rarely touched crisps or biscuits.
He’s currently home from uni for the summer and is much the same. He’ll have some chocolate ice cream but ploughs through the blueberries, strawberries, apples bananas and salad.
i think they need to learn how to moderate themselves.

There are obviously loads of extremes here. Like I don’t think there is any harm in having few packets of crisps in the cupboard and some biscuits. But at the end of the day, healthy eating is largely about habits that we have. Things like not eating between meals, not eating something sweet everyday, serving normal portions of food, choosing good quality food, making dinners from ingredients.

These habits of eating are set in childhood. People who get caught up in diet culture or who frequently have to restrict their food or have food cravings generally have not had these habits from their childhood.

I’d honestly never even think of getting this in for watching a movie.

it wouldn’t even occur to me.

I’m not really health conscious or anything. I’d make popcorn, get in some chocolate. But I’m not fighting cravings for stuff like this, thanks to the habits that were engrained from my parents.

We don't have it in, almost ever. I almost never buy crisps, fizzy drinks, squash, sugary cereal, biscuits or sweets. Mostly because it's the easiest way to reduce our food bill - I could easily spend an extra £20 p/w on those things, and they're of no nutritional value. I bake cakes and sweets things, and will buy an ice cream out and about or pop to the shop for some fizzy just for a treat sometimes, but we don't make any of it a regular part of our food shop or keep it in the house regularly.

We have a variety of everything. So we always have biscuits and crisps but we also have nuts, seeds, popcorn kernels, Greek yoghurt, fruit, salad, cheeses etc.
It's just me and 13 year old twin girls.
I filled the biscuit tin 2 weeks ago, it's still full but when I wanted to make myself a ham salad sandwich earlier I wasn't happy when I discovered someone had eaten all the ham, lettuce, spring onions and cucumber and not bothered to tell me.
I think my daughters have learnt to self regulate, they know what's healthy and what isn't. The only thing I've ever really restricted is fizzy drinks. They didn't have any at all until they were around 8 and now I only buy them occasionally.

Balance in all things though.....tonight we had pan fried tuna with a cucumber, tomato and spring onion salsa. Chocolate magnum for desert.

Agree with OP, this honestly sounds disgusting (isn’t slushy just heaps of sugar and food colouring over ice?). I’m not saying I never eat UPF/unhealthy food, I love an ice cream after a bike ride in the heat and if I see tiramisu on a menu I’m all over it. But a pile of UPF every time the family watches a film together? Seems like a very unhealthy habit to me.

If someone craves something, then they crave it. Being a child means you don’t have the money to pay for it, so you can’t have it. Yet when they get older and have access to those things, they’re going to binge eat it. I know, because I was one of those.

parents never allowed any ‘unhealthy’ chocolate, cake etc unless it was dessert on a Sunday. As soon as I was 16 and had access to my own money, I would get anything sweet I could get my hands on as I had been deprived of it.

i would say to have it and teach limits. Have the odd selection and have a talk about health and the effect on body, teeth etc and what happens if you eat too much. But restriction leads to disordered eating so it’s best to educate rather than restrict.

Exactly. The kids that grow up eating normal diets consisting of actual food might go mad for a while and live on chips / Greggs for a while when they leave home. But they will revert to type when they become adults and I bet they provide actual food for their children.

But the ones that grow up eating shite ‘food’ will carry on doing this into adulthood and will teach their children to do the same 🙄