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

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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.

I've always been a healthy weight until recently - currently I'm underweight.

Breakfast was usually toast or cereal.
Lunch - school dinner or packed lunch containing sandwich, crisps, chocolate bar and carrot sticks or similar.
10p or 20p bag of penny sweets on the walk home from school.
I usually had something like cheese on toast after school.
Dinner would be meat, potatoes and veg type of thing. Dessert wasn't a regular occurrence but we sometimes had ice cream or chocolate gateau or crumble.

We were never forced to clear our plates, and never made to go hungry either - we could always eat in between meals if we were hungry. Usually things like toast, crackers and cheese, instant noodles etc. My mum had a treat box and we could help ourselves, with the proviso that we couldn't empty it out, leaving no snacks for our packed lunches.

Reading more posts, and having another think, I never had sweets, just didn't like them tbh, and was never made to clear my plate, which is probably very helpful too. When you had enough, you stopped, and I think the portions were probably small. I still do the same now, I rarely eat everything, and actually I can never eat the whole meal when we go out, I find the portions enormous.

@hamstersarse

To this day, I'm a bit shocked if I see that someone has coco pops in the house.

Me too! We definitely weren’t allowed coco pops and I’d be aghast at friends houses if they were allowed them.

My mum was from a farming family and she really didn’t and still doesn’t, like fake food. I don’t think she’s ever eaten a pizza in her whole life and she’s a slim, healthy 79 year old now!

This made me laugh. I LOVED coco pops, and frosties, and any sugary cereal tbh, and I added a couple of extra spoons of sugar. Was the recipe different in the 70's?

What food was available?

Meals generally, fruit and toast and yoghurts, biscuits (I remember thinking three was the right amount to eat!), crisps, what my mum called "snack biscuits" which were things like a club, two bar kit kat, one bar twix etc. We'd have sweets, ice cream and so on as and when we visited shops really. Defo didn't expect a sweet/ice cream every outing or shop visit. We had pocket money we could spend but didn't generally spend it all on sweets. I remember at one point going to the corner shop after school on Fridays as a sort of weekly thing. Unusual or seasonal fruit - grapes, berries, cherries - were seen as a huge treat. At Christmas we'd have bowls of fruit and nuts, and a tin of chocolates which were sort of generally available.

When and where did you eat it?

Meals together with family. We would have pudding but it would often be fruit, a yoghurt or a snack biscuit. Sometimes proper puddings like apple crumble or bread and butter pudding. Ice cream, angel delight etc. As I got into my teens I was often hungry after meals but it didn't really occur to me to ask for more food. I would have a snack whenever I felt like it, but I didn't usually have more than one, and I didn't have one every day. If I made myself toast it would usually be two slices. We had a two slice toaster. I suppose I usually snacked after school while watching after school TV, maybe in the evening after dinner if I was still hungry.

Where was it stored?

Cupboard/fridge/freezer/shop

Who got to decide when it was ok to have a treat?

I suppose my mum? I don't remember it being a big thing. I had one when I wanted one, I don't remember having to ask, but I didn't want one nearly as much as my kids ask for them, and I was generally satisfied with one thing. Perhaps there was a kind of rule establishment when I was younger that I have since forgotten. I think it really just didn't occur to me to ask for more snacks. I am not hugely food motivated. My sister was the same. I had a sense of fairness and knowing that the snacks had to last so not wanting to eat them all in one go as there wouldn't be any left. I actually get really annoyed that my kids and DH don't seem to understand this innately, because I did!

Were treats always shared equally?

I suppose? I don't remember this being a thing or not a thing so I can't really remember but I didn't have any strong feelings about it either way.

Interestingly as an adult I don't have as much restraint over "treat foods" - if I have chocolate, biscuits, crisps etc in the house I will eat them and in much larger quantities than I ever did as a child. When I first became an adult and realised that you could possibly have more than three biscuits at a time it blew my mind a little bit. It had just never really occurred to me before - three was the right amount of biscuits!

Childhood in 80's, no strict rules really, able to eat whatever snacks I wanted. Generally not much chocolate in the house or desserts often but had multiple packets of chips each day in school from the tuck shop and would ride to the off licence with my dad each night and get sweets and more crisps. Didn't have to finish all my meals
Always had a sweet tooth and still do.
Always been slim, no idea how as a child really, ate lots and lots of junk. But was always active so might have offset it?

Crisps not chips

I was born in the early 90s. What food was available? Anything I wanted. Our house always had biscuits, chocolate, crisps, fruit, veg. When and where did you eat it? At home and when I made my own packed lunch. Whenever I wanted except in the hour before tea was ready. Where was it stored? Cupboard - accessible. Who got to decide when it was ok to have a treat? I did, mum never restricted amounts or timings except just before tea. Were treats always shared equally? Only child.

When I first became an adult and realised that you could possibly have more than three biscuits at a time it blew my mind a little bit. It had just never really occurred to me before - three was the right amount of biscuits!

That is so true, although our standard portion was 2 biscuits. You never had more than 2!

I couldn’t believe it when people would eat a whole packet of biscuits. I still can’t I suppose! I must have been brainwashed around gluttony being a sin!

Also, we had no pasta ever. I think I would be 10/11 before we had a pasta....whenever dolmio hit the shelves

Yy 2 biscuits (3 is a bit greedy). Also only 2 chocolates from the box per day. I suppose I really think that 2 is "enough" whatever that means. Easter eggs eaten over 4 days 1 day each for each 1/2 egg, chocolate bar (you usually got 2). Again no strict rule just the way it was.

Being made to clear your plate can be a very different thing depending on whether you have any control over what went on that plate in the first place. I don't remember a single occasion where somebody else just piled food on my place.

The general rule that you were to eat up was as much a rule against being greedy in the first place and grabbing more than you could eat: my parents' generation still had the mindset that food was precious and must not be wasted. And in my family, with 4 hungry children, anything you took and then didn't eat was something somebody else might have enjoyed. So you took as much as you needed.

70s
We had sweets and comics on a Sunday
Pudding with every dinner.
Didn't have access to lots of food outside the home. Didn't snack between meals.

I was in my 30s before I had the revelation that I could go into a shop and buy any type of chocolate bar I wanted just because I wanted it.

It just hadn't crossed my mind before. Bit weird because I knew they were there and I knew it wasn't wrong to buy them but I just hadn't done it.

70's kid. Home cooked food always. Treat on Friday and occasional treat when Nana babysat. I had no fat friends and literally no fat schoolmates. Everyone was in the same boat - not a lot of money going around but we were all well fed and extremely active kids. With my own kids, I've more or less stuck to the same routine with the very occasional takeaway. Both are a normal weight and extremely active.

I have been slim my entire life, and was always allowed to eat whatever I wanted. My siblings are the same. Grew up a child of the 90s on mostly junk food, and it used to really confuse me when friends would tell me their parents limited what they could and could not have. I think one of the reasons we all stayed so slim was the simple fact that we were extremely active - I was playing sports every day of the week and at home we were always playing outside .

I was born in 80s, there was never a time when treats were banned in our house. We were always allowed a treat but it was usually just one biscuit or small treat size choc bar. We didn't have fizzy drinks or takeaway at home ever when I was a child (even as a teen we didn't).
The same was true for alcohol when we got older, never banned it, but were allowed a glass as older teens etc.
All three of us have always been normal weights.
I feel we were always allowed treats and therefore it never became a battle of wills, but the quantity was limited.

I've always been a healthy weight and feel I was brought up to have a good relationship with good. Nothing was ever denied but almost every meal was homemade including dessert. I always had quite boring lunches compared to friends but they were filling. We usually didn't have chocolate and sweets in the house but often my dad would pop to the local shop and buy a bar for everyone as a treat. Never had squash or fizzy drinks and now don't drink them.

never snacks during the day.
very limited treats (popcorn, chrisps, chocolate) watching a tv film.
dessert after main meal usually fresh or tinned fruit.
something more fancy at weekends like custard or cake.

80s
Lots of home made cakes
Crisps
Never drank water, always squash
Chocolate only on Sundays (3 squares)
Sweets only when we were going on a long journey (and only one small packet)
Sugar in tea
Sugar on cereal

I was a child in the 90s / 00s - was allowed one bar of chocolate on a Friday and a packet of crisps on a Wednesday. No pudding with any meal except maybe crumble on a Sunday.

Always had boiled eggs and toast for breakfast.

Unlimited cheese / bananas as snacks, but rarely had as I wasn’t that bothered. Slice of toast and butter after school.