If you have always been a healthy weight, what treats were allowed when you were a child?

[aapple]

If you have always been a healthy weight, how were snacks, treats and desserts dealt with in your childhood?

I'm interested to know. What food was available? When and where did you eat it? Where was it stored? Who got to decide when it was ok to have a treat? Were treats always shared equally? Just generally interested to know the minutiae of your house rules.

I wasn't brought up with a healthy relationship with food and don't want to pass this on to my children. But so much of the discussion around these things centers around people who have changed their own snacking habits to lose weight. I'm looking to find out what habits set you up for a healthy relationship with treats from the start.

Always had free reign. Nothing restricted. Have healthy attitude to food

My entire family is slim and there were pretty much no food restrictions.

Breakfast was cereal or eggs, lunch was sandwiches, a chocolate bar, fruit and dinner was spag Bol or sausage and mash or similar.

I’d normally have a snack when I got back from school (cookies / toast / whatever).

At the weekend we’d have bacon sandwiches, a small lunch and the like pizza / spread out tea for dinner. Occasionally a takeaway. Biscuits always in the cupboard to help ourselves to.

None of us are naturally big sugar eaters though - as a kid my Easter eggs would last months as I just wasn’t bothered.

This was in the 90s.

The concept of “treats” is alien to me, despite the amount of cakes and biscuits we had. That was just normal food. A treat would be an ice cream in a cone on holiday, the only time we had them.

Child 70/80s

No takeaways

One small family cake a week ( 4 4 4 2 mix) , made in a Sunday , shared with visitors . Or ice cream from van

Chocolate biscuit every school lunch , eg 2 finger Kit Kat

1/4 of sweets on a Friday in holidays ( except when money tight )

Crisps at the weekend

Bread and jam ,bananas and milk for snacks

Fizzy pop from granny

I cannot believe the amount of food I ate when young - but sweets only once a week on Sunday
Senior school age
B - 2 rounds of baked beans on toast/eggs on toast
Snack - 4 crackers with cheese and an orange
L cooked meal with pudding
Snack - cake and tea or egg and soldier's or banana sandwich
D cooked meal with HM pudding daily 😳 (SAHM)
Supper - shredded wheat with hot milk and sugar, cocoa
Having said that, I played sport 2-4 hours every day of the week
7stone 10 late teens - 30's
Carry more since pregnancies but never overweight

1970s

Breakfast, Dinner (at school), Tea (small sandwich) and Supper (light one-course meal).

Always at the table.

No snacks, no sweets, no soft drinks.
No helping ourselves other than fruit.

Sweets, biscuits, crisps etc occasional treats.
Meals out, takeaways etc only on occasional treats.

1970s/80s Drinks were water, squash or tea. Orange juice was a luxury so would have it sometimes but just in a small glass.

Snack like after school would be up to 3 biscuits or crackers, or an egg cup full of raisins. I don’t remember grazing really, it was mostly meals at mealtimes. I think we had yogurt for pudding or maybe we didn’t have pudding on weekdays? Or maybe something like a Club biscuit? Something nice Friday- Sunday like an M and S cornflake cake or a treacle tart, or a Jamaica ginger cake. Think biscuits might have been available of an evening but you never had more than 3.

Fizzy pop every other weekend, one big bottle to share.

Occasional fish and chips but no takeaways apart from that really. Lots of meat and two veg type meals, or beans on toast or jacket potato with cheese.

Bought sweets once a week with pocket money, a quarter of something or other.

@Prokupatuscrakedatus

in the 70ties 3 simple meals a day one of them hot ice cream every second day in summer a piece of chocolate on a friday home made cake once a month no snacks, take aways, ready meals always at the table, never with the TV on

This, exactly. My parents didn't buy chocolate, sweets, cakes or biscuits! They did bake probably once a fortnight. We had a takeaway or meal out if it was someone's birthday.

In my 60’s never been overweight, never been on a diet. Currently 9 stone at 5ft 6inch.
We had three meals a day, one of them always hot and including a stodgy pudding eg jam sponge or treacle tart. Things like sausage and bacon were always fried in fat not grilled.
However we rarely had snacks just an occasional ice cream in the summer. We didn’t have to eat all of our meals but if we didn’t there was no more food until the next meal. I can remember always being hungry at meal times so rarely left anything.
Remember we also lived in cold houses, walked everywhere and played outside unless it was pouring down.

I think the main problem nowadays is the constant eating.

We had good food

A mix of French and English cooking

Lots of cream, butter and potatoes and meat

Pudding every night

Friday treat a couple of lines of chocolate
And treat in car to piano and ballet (plus car sickness)

Cordial which must have been bad for teeth but maybe fluoride in water helped (Aus)

I was the only fat one in the family and ate the least but I had 2 serious metabolic problems that weren’t fixed until adulthood. The minute they were fixed my weight went back to a normal bmi. I eat only when I’m hungry. I don’t eat breakfast and , lunch is light too now I work from home, I live on milky teas and coffees, dinner is often Indian: so dals / boiled rice or 2 chapattis, veg sabzi and natural yoghurt. I also try to head out for a long brisk walk as often as I can - usually do 4-5 miles in one go which is easy up here as the paths are good.

Born 80s. I think my mum was more bothered about our teeth and her shopping budget when I was a nipper, rather than weight. We had no snacks, we weren't allowed to take anything without asking first and we were never permitted to have two of anything. We had a pud nearly every night after tea but often it would be fruit-based. I had crisps and a biscuit in my lunchbox for school alongside a butty and some fruit and yoghurt. I also realised our plates were smaller than modern dinner plates.

Always had yoghurts in the fridge for pudding - or those supermousses in the freezer - loved them, still do but haven’t seen them in years.

I had completely forgotten about frozen mousses. Now I want one!

80s childhood. Same as a lot of people’s - no more than 2 biscuits at a time etc. After school (primary age) we spent a lot of time with grandparents at their houses not our own, so we were on their snack regime and that was probably much more traditional- set times, get what you’re given etc. So no ‘helping ourselves’ to snacks. Usually homemade cake, so not like we were deprived.

At home it was proper cooked evening meals, no pudding generally except weekends. Always a roast on Sunday. Cream cakes for a treat, chocolate bars etc weekend treats or random occasions. No fizzy drinks except special occasions or out at the pub beer garden in the summer, that sort of thing. Fruit was help yourself, biscuit tin usually had digestives or whatever- nothing fancy. Crisps on picnics, not as regular store cupboard stuff. Sweets were a pocket money purchase.

Nothing was restricted, but neither was it encouraged to help yourself. There was loads of food around but no much was particularly desirable ‘snacks’. The whole family are big tea drinkers, and a cuppa is always accompanied by the offer of something but no pressure to accept.

I’m not wildly different with my DC. We probably have more snack-stuff in, but I encourage fruit more often than biscuits, it’s yoghurt after tea usually and nice dessert/fizzy drinks at weekends or occasions, and they ask before eating for the most part and know it’ll be a no if it’s close to a meal time.

I also realised our plates were smaller than modern dinner plates.

This is a pertinent point. Plates now are a lot bigger. I think we just ate less food then. Cakes and high-calorie food was normal.

In terms of attitudes towards weight: my most vivid memories include seeing my mum reading weight loss books and doing video tape exercise workouts on a mat she stored behind the sofa.

In terms of food: no puddings after meals. Nothing like cake etc in the house. Lots of veg in meals. But things like eating in front of TV was allowed.

I've never struggled with my weight. I am heavier after having DC but still within the normal BMI range.

In the 90s. My mum's a GP.

Breakfast was a "healthy" cereal like shreddies (in retrospect more sugar-filled than my parents realised, I think cereal companies conned people into believing they were healthy), or toast. Fruit if you want it. Croissants or pancakes would be an occasional weekend treat.

School lunchbox was a healthy sandwich (e.g peanut butter and lettuce), a piece of fruit, and a snack such as a Mr Kipling apple pie, and/or a packet of crisps. Bigger portions as we got older.

Evening was a home cooked meal, with shortcuts like bought pasta sauce. Takeaway or eating out was a rare treat, less than once a month.

You could help yourself to food (preferably not right before meals cos you'd "ruin your appetite") but my parents just didn't buy much unhealthy food - I think to reduce to their own snacking temptation. So if I went browsing for a late night snack it would usually end up being toast, or fruit and yoghurt. We'd get chocolates at Christmas, Easter etc, but when it was gone it was gone. We could spend our pocket money on sweets if we wanted, though my parents tried to encourage us to save it up for other things. So as a teenager I would get a chocolate bar from the shop on my way home from school, but just what I wanted to eat at the time, and it was a fair walk away so I wouldn't pop out from home for snacks.

I grew up in the 80s and was allowed pretty much whatever snacks I wanted. Had dessert (ice creams, yoghurt, rice pudding etc) if I wanted. We weren't made to eat what was on the plate and generally asked what we wanted for dinner. All my family are a healthy weight. None of us consume a huge amount of food and have a relaxed attitude to food- it was never made into a massive thing.

@NoSquirrels we also had a biscuit tin of digestives. I went slightly biscuit-crazy when I left home and discovered I could buy bourbons, or custard creams!

Mum mostly fed me junk food. Were allowed as much crisps donuts and crap we wanted.
I actually wanted fruit more....
Was skinny, then athletic.

Have much better diet now and am about 5kg overweight, am 24weeks pregnant though

In hindsight I think it’s boggling the amount of sugar we had:

-breakfast often high sugar like Frosties or weetabix with sugar spooned on the top

• free access to fizzy drinks

-free access to ‘fun-sized’ chocolate bars

-pudding of some description every day (fruit yogurt, angel delight etc.

I used to actually enjoy making myself ‘healthy’ snacks and saw them as a bit of a treat and I stopped liking sugary cereal and started asking for branflakes.

Bizarre really!

My experience similar to meredithgrey's
Food just wasn't an issue. Preferences were acknowledged but by no means followed up. If you were hungry you ate it and if it was something you really liked, then that was a bonus.

Three meals a day. Small portion sizes. Mostly home-made; my mother was a good plain cook. No snacks. Crisps for birthday parties only. Sweets were kept in tin: two after lunch, and then we cleaned our teeth. Later we could buy sweets from our pocket money - that was a normal amount for the time, but by modern standards not generous. Water or very dilute squash - Rose's Lime Juice was a treat! No fizzy drinks, except for the time when a friend of my mother's gave her a ginger beer plant. Most of the bottles exploded in the larder and made a horrid sticky mess and attracted so many wasps. But my mother had clearly intended a treat for us. That was kind of her. Also Lucozade in its orange cellophane wrapper when genuinely ill in bed. No takeaways, no frozen foods/ready meals.

On Sundays, we had a roast meat/chicken lunch and a proper pudding (apple crumble was a favourite). Supper that evening was always cold; cheese, celery, crackers or oatcakes, very possibly a slice of home-made 'luxury' cake, such as a victoria sandwich or chocolate sponge. Perhaps an orange or an apple to follow.

When junior school age, we had a light 'tea' to eat when we came home - a scone and butter (possibly jam, but I always hated that) or a piece of flapjack or slice of sponge-cake (all home made) or a crumpet with butter and perhaps jam or marmite or some cheese - plus, close to bedtime, a hot milky drink and perhaps a couple of plain biscuits. (Ovaltine, anyone? Rich tea biscuits?)

Breakfast was porridge or toast and marmite or a fairly plain cereal such as Weetabix plus milk. I can remember the excitement when Muesli reached local consciousness.

Lunch - when at junior school - was our main meal. We walked to and fro to school four times a day. It would be something like macaroni cheese or shepherd's pie, followed by stewed fruit or, in winter, a steamed pudding.
At secondary school I took a packed lunch; that was plain by modern standards: a sandwich, usually cheese because that was what I liked, a biscuit such as a 'Club', and an apple. That was all, right until I was 18. I survived. Supper at that age was more substantial: fish pie (my mother's was excellent); sausages or - an amazing new discovery at the butcher's - burgers, and 2 veg and potatoes. Pizza, pasta, curry and other foods from beyond UK shores - even French ones ! - were really not known. This was ignorance, not prejudice.

Tinned or stewed fruit or perhaps yoghurt - also new and exciting - for pudding. I think we forget today how difficult it was in the past to secure reliable year-round supplies of fresh fruit, without a freezer or supermarkets. That's why so many family gardens had blackcurrant or gooseberry bushes or an apple tree or two, or rhubarb beds. Our next-door neighbour - a lovely, wise, gentle person - was a whizz at the old-fashioned an really not at all easy skill of bottling fruit. Looking back, we should have respected her more.

I honestly can't remember, grew up in the 70's. Vaguely remember meatballs out of a tin, cod in a boil in the bag, Vienetta on high days! Orange juice and Ribena aplenty. Whole family slim, god knows how. Plenty of home cooking too I think....

70’s childhood

I’ve never eaten much breakfast. Mostly toast and jam if having something (home made jam!)

School dinners

Dinner was always something very traditional English - shepherds pie, roast chicken, roast beef etc. We’d have seasonal desserts- so apple pie, crumble etc but only when the fruit came into season. We grew fruit. Occasionally Neopolitan ice cream in the big block covered in cardboard.

We rarely ate snacks. It was a crime for sure to eat any sweets before lunch (no idea if that’s a thing’)

We’d go to the shop maybe once a week to buy penny chews.
I don’t think I went to a restaurant until I was over 10! No takeaways as we’d have now, but Fish and Chips was a treat maybe once a quarter and it really was a treat. We’d get bags of ‘scraps’ from the chippy for 1p too. Delicious.

Similar here born 1976.
Breakfast was plain cereal (weetabix) toast or porridge on winter mornings. Sugary cereals just for hoildays.
Lunch of sandwich, fruit, yoghurt, crisps but not everyday.
After school : 10p mix on tuesdays and fridays, otherwise toast or crumpets and I think another piece of fruit.
Supper: Home cooked meal, spag bol, fish or shepards pie, Kebabs with rice, various pasta dishes, chilli, lasange, stir fry or home made pizza. Pudding in the week was fruit or yoghurt sometimes ice cream but not every night. Water or squash to drink.

Treats were chips on the way home from a day out or on holiday, donuts from the bakers or a bar of chocolate or packet of smarties from the grandparents. These all happened once a month or less.

We walked to school (25 minutes each way) and took ourselves swimming from age 8. Hours on our bikes.

I still eat chips rarely, eat fruit at least twice a day without thinking about it. I cook my family similar things. I am 5'5 and have weighed between 8.5 and 9.5 stone since I was 16 except when pregnant.