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.

Oh no sweets before lunch rule. I still can't eat sweets or cake in the morning.

@babyyodaxmas

I think it makes sense! I’m always flabbergasted people can eat chocolate in the morning. It’s ingrained into me this morning rule

We had no desserts except if my nanny came for dinner maybe once every month or two, 1 biscuit a day at 11 when my mom needed a break (preschool), some chocolate while watching a movie on a saturday. We did the odd bit of baking, maybe 3 or 4 times a year. There generally wasnt much chocolate or biscuits in the house but any that were were up in a cabinet in the kitchen. No access for us, but we never thought of asking for them. We just didnt expect them. We had sweets for christmas, birthday parties (ours and others), easter. It never noticed it purposely rationed or anything. It just wasnt part of our normal day. I dont have a sweet tooth at all luckily.

Born 1980, so a child of the 80s/adolescent in the 90s.

I don't remember 'snacks', per se: there were no rules about what we were or weren't allowed to eat, but it was generally a thing that you only ate three times a day (occasionally toast at bed time if you were really hungry), although I haven't really eaten breakfast since about the age of 13. We had crisps and sweets in the house.

My dad was at sea, and my mother wasn't a great cook - competent enough, but she's not a foodie and didn't take a huge amount of pleasure in cooking, so our meals were home-cooked, but plain: there was a lot of mince. 😄

We only drank milk, water or diluting juice - fizzy juice was for parties and my mother was peculiarly ahead of her time in thinking that fresh fruit juice (full of sugar) wasn't good for teeth, so that was a rare treat.

I didn't have much of a sweet tooth (still don't - will go for the cheese or nuts before pudding or chocolate) and was a bookish kid, so would spend my pocket money on books or comics rather than sweets.

Normal weight as a child and I've maintained more or less the same weight (+/- 7lbs or so) since I was about 20.

Never more than 1 packet of crisps per day, but usually only a couple of times a week.
Fruit & yoghurts available whenever we wanted them
Usually pudding after dinner
A small chocolate bar after school if dad collected us
An apple if mum collected us 😂😂

late 80s -90s 3 meals a day, always including veg. childs portions clearly smaller than adults but I was told to finish plate.
dessert of fruit or yoghurt, occasional ice cream or cake.
occasional Crisps but those small ones not full packet. there wasn't any sweets or anything kept in the house to binge on. I think the worst I could ever get my hands on was nicking lumps of cheese or ham straight out the packet.

60s / 70s
Three meals a day. Pudding after tea.
I don't ever remember snacks or anything between meals, I have kept this habit all my life. There were no crisps or chocolate in the house but we did have cake as part of the meal sometimes.
My grandad would get us a small bag of sweets once a week.

Meant to add - I DO like food, and I'm actually a very good cook and enjoy cooking, but my OH and I seem to have a 'food as fuel' mindset: while we do like to eat good food, we also have an innate off button that means we rarely overeat.

I have friends who have problematic relationships with food, for a variety of reasons, and it seems that they lack this 'off switch'.

@aapple

I like the idea of free access to snacks. But I can't imagine that it wouldn't lead to competition. Like the kids would feel that if they didn't eat things now, their siblings would have polished everything off when they wanted something later.

Maybe that says more about my upbringing though?

I suppose the thing is that they probably would go a bit mad at first but if there really is constant access - ie you keep replacing what is bought - they will soon learn that there is no competition at all. I just can't conceive of food being competitive (and as per my first post, grew up with pretty much unrestricted access to treats). It probably feels hard to make the switch but I think they would adjust - it honestly gets boring after a while! A big part is the language you use as well though I think. My parents never talked about food as being good or bad, never talked about being "naughty" and no moral judgements were ever applied. Crucially I think, I never once felt any urge to binge on anything because I knew it would just get replaced. Both by DBs and I have pretty healthy relationships with food now, all pretty good at moderating our intake and all enjoy a wide variety of food.

I was a very unhappy child from an abusive family (another thread). Was forced to finish every meal however unhealthy or disgusting. Also forced to drink full fat milk which I hated. I used to steal food from anywhere and hide in my grandmothers house for extras. She completely overfed me and would again get punished for eating it. I am still overweight but have learned to love myself over the years. They were really bad times and as a child between 4 and 11 had no control over anything. Will namechange now as never admitted before about physical, mental and sexual abuse. Hope they rot in hell.

My ex bf had a weird rule of no sweets or snacks of any kind before 1030am. Maybe that stemmed from boarding school as that would have been break time? I think that as long as breakfast has been eaten then the dc can have whatever they like as long as it's not close to lunch. There are no rules as to what can be eaten at what time really.

As a child my grandmother gave me lots of sweets but we lived far away so it wasn't very often. She had sweets and crisps out on the coffee table at all times. I drank full sugar drinks. Hell, we took cherry Pepsi to school! My lunch box had a can of something fizzy or a flask of vimto, a sandwich, a chocolate biscuit like a club, kitkat or twix, possibly an apple but I can't remember. We ate sweets regularly like 10p mix. Chocolate was small bars or things like a club biscuit. Breakfast was cereal or bacon butties or a cooked breakfast. Lunch at home would be crackers or a sandwich. Dinner very traditional meat/fish, potatoes, veg. I went veggie when I was 14. Eating disordered for 30 years and I'm weird about food even now. A few pounds overweight after first lockdown but back to a normal weight now and trying to lose a little more. Skinny as a child but normal weight all my life. I was born mid 70s.

As a child we were each given pocket money on Saturday morning, set at the going price of a Mars bar. We always spent the money on sweets but that was it for the week, no other sweets, biscuits, crisps, fizzy drinks, takeaways.

We had unlimited toast & jam or weetabix and full cream milk for breakfast, school lunch and then an evening meal, normally meat & lots of fresh veg, followed by home made fruit pudding & custard. Good portion sizes but no snacks in between.

I'm mid 50s now, never been more than a size 12 (I'm 5'8"), normally a size 10. Still don't do snacks much, and seldom drink alcohol.

As a child sweets one day a week when we were allowed a bag of penny sweets which we could choose and pay for ourselves.

We are everything given to us for dinner.

We rarely ate pudding.

Snacking was non existent, both parents excellent cooks.

Child of the 70s. Didn’t often have puddings - not because they weren’t allowed, we just didn’t. No rules about sweets, had lots of pop.

OH is a little younger than me and there were a lot more food rules, but oddly more puddings. All the siblings have - or have had eating disorders.

I've never been overweight, I'm very active and physically fit as well. I'm 40. My brother is also in his 40s and has never been overweight. We are both quite slim.

I don't remember anything being restricted at all as a child. We did gorge on sweets at times but generally three meals a day plus snacks and treats were available as we wanted and we ate pretty sensibly. Both my parents were overweight but they drank a lot and I think that's why.

My two cousins were not allowed and sweets or chocolate at all. I vividly remember them being at our house and their mum literally smelling their breath because they thought we might have shared a tube of smarties with them. The oldest would have been about 7 or 8 then.

One of those cousins has anorexia and the other is obese. Their mother is also anorexic but I didn't really know that as a child. There was a lot of restriction going on in that house and neither of them are well now.

Oh and I remember - there were no fizzy drinks. There was milk (which I didn't like) and water - we all drank water, still do (DB, DSis, and the younger generation).

Weight wise I started out as an adult at the lowest end of the healthy BMI range and now 50 years later I am at the top end.

None!!! No treats, no dessert. Ever. Just 3 meals a day, nothing in between.

I was lovely and slim until I met DH. He grew up in a household where treats and dessert were the norm. I am afraid to say we have subsumed treats and desserts into our diet.

I am fat now 😟.

Uncan still remember the day mum said I was old enough to be allowed to have 3 biscuits at a time rather than 2 it was so momentous!

@mistermagpie reading that reminds me of my OH’s sister and her kids, sadly.

1960s

Breakfast: cereal, boiled egg and soldiers or porridge in the winter
Lunch: school dinner in the week. Meat and two veg at the weekend followed usually by tinned fruit and custard or fresh fruit in the summer
Tea: ham and salad, smoked haddock, beans on toast or similar, with bread and jam and one slice of home made cake

DF used to bring me a Club biscuit on a Friday night, which I ate on a Saturday. Sometimes he'd bring a packet of crisps as well. Chocolate biscuits were available, but strictly rationed.

We never had a car when l was young and so we ended up walking everywhere. By age 13/14 l was almost 5.8" tall, .and extremely skinny and l felt very self consciousness. I wore a lot of layers.
We mostly had chocolate treats and crisp in the house, , readily available in cupboards, and 3 regular meals a day. l remember feeling quite hungry at times,.We had to have to wait ages until my dad finished work to eat.
My Mum has never been on a diet, and neither have l, l am 52 now, still slim and active. I will admit some.of .My mum's meals weren't that healthy, we came home from school for lunch and lived off egg and chips.
We never gave food much thought really back then as to what was healthy, food was never a big thing. We drank mostly tap water with abit of orange squash,.no fizzy drinks. Only as l got older l started drinking coffee, l didn't like it when l was younger, or tea. So in my family there was a very relaxed attitude towards food.

Try the gentle eating book by Sarah Ockwell-Smith. It's great about this!

A packet of crisps every night for “supper”. Sometimes two packets if mum had been shopping. Maybe three on a weekend.
Biscuits could be eaten as far as they would last (maybe a couple of packets a week between three of us?).
Not much fruit, no “healthy” snacks e.g. cheese, carrots at all. Lots of sweets, sugary covered bubblegum etc. and bought chocolate often at the corner shop.
Open cupboard policy; if the snacks were there then we could help ourselves, unless it was half an hour or less until a mealtime.
Fizzy pop was our only drink and we could have that whenever, the full sugar kind as well.

It kind of shocks me now to think how badly we ate and drank but I was a very active child and we ate pretty well at mealtimes - all home cooked from scratch stuff and I didn’t mind vegetables. We also rarely had dessert - I got enough sugar from sweets and pop! I was rarely still for longer than a mealtime, me and my brother would be constantly running around the house and neighbourhood, and we hardly ever watched TV or lounged.

So on balance I guess it worked...have always had a healthy weight, and I don’t eat and drink such amounts of sugar now.

Anyone else who was a kid on the 70s/ 80s- did any of your relatives put sugar in soft drinks sometimes so you could all watch it go extra fizzy?

I mean wtf.

I'm amazed I still have my teeth tbh

Thanks for all the replies. A lot of similarities in what everyone is saying. I like the ideas of:

Spending your own pocket money on food, if you want your own stash.
Two biscuit serving size.
No sweets before lunch.
Puddings homemade, at weekends.
Eating at the table.

I'm not sure I'm brave enough for free access to all food. Fruit, toast, cheese, yoghurt etc. I'm fine with. But I think chocolate, biscuits, crisps will have to be asked for. Mostly I'm not sure that us adults could model the required discipline. Maybe I could have a biscuit tin with just plain malted milks or something.