Why do people enjoy giving little children junk food?

[Tietheapron]

I am very much in favour of balance in all areas. DS is two. At the moment, we haven’t got a massively fussy stage - there’s a handful of things he doesn’t seem too keen on and I imagine this will probably expand as he gets a bit older before then (hopefully!) getting a bit more variety. So to give an example, on Thursday he had porridge for breakfast and then a rich tea biscuit at a music group we go to in the morning. Then had to go into the bank so he had to go in the pushchair - had a banana to keep him quiet! As a result all he wanted for lunch was maybe half a ham sandwich and a few baby crisps. Then homemade pizza with veg on for tea. I’m explaining this so it’s clear I don’t completely raise him on fruit grown from the garden and eggs from our own chickens.

But then this morning he ate a bowl of shreddies and then DH gave him a biscuit, actually going in the kitchen to get him one (so not like DS found them and hoovered one up.) Visit PIL and they try to ply him with mars bars and ice creams, big ones for adults. (We don’t see PIL often, not for this reason as they are actually lovely people but they aren’t local.) Brother came to see DS and took him for a walk in the park, ignored the water bottle and bought him a fruit shoot and fruit pastilles.

I don’t want to sound like a neurotic mum here and I’m sure plenty of people will say to get a grip, I’m lucky people are nice to DS but I suppose this is my question really - why does kindness and love have to be shown through food? Isn’t it enough to go to the park with him, to read to him, play in the garden (they do this too!)

I hate sounding like a killjoy but I really don’t want him associating everyone but me with junk food!

I don't call it a treat. I don't think it's a treat at all anyway.

Well sort of @C8H10N4O2 although mine were pretty elderly when I came along so a lot of the things you mention were N/A. But my brother did have to have a hell of a lot of expensive and painful treatment to his teeth, and this started with his first set. A lot of that was sweets and chocolates at Nanny’s house. That was an everyday thing and was back in the late 70s/early 80s and I know things were different then. But I can’t just shrug and say oh it’s the point of grandparents if it’s actually leading to problems, either with behaviour (demanding sweets) or teeth.

I really hate this idea of a ‘treat box’ as IME a lot of kids just get obsessed with it.

DS likes rich tea biscuits, bananas, raspberries and loves cherry tomatoes. Is it actually benefiting anyone if I say NO you can’t have raspberries but you CAN have a load of Smarties? Does that do any good at all? That’s what baffles me a bit I guess and I don’t mean that in a PA MN ‘I don’t understaaaand’ way, I genuinely don’t get why some posters on here think it’s cruel to give a toddler a rich tea biscuit!

Nothing wrong with the occasional Greggs IMO - no sugar.

Adult not just parent get your facts right. You are creepy and it shows in your response by thinking adults kissing kids on the lips is affection!

I was actually thinking about what I had as a child years ago (early 1970s). I recall getting a Nice biscuit at playgroup with a glass of milk, the biscuit tin was open at home but as a treat (Digestives). I helped DM to make queen cakes from a very young age and then we had those as treats. We had school dinners up to 7 years old and I don’t recall puddings but did have odd one at home eg home made apple pie or peaches in juice and ice cream. From 8-9 we had packed lunches and did have Club etc bars with crisps then. Also sweets which we bought ourselves but also yoghurts which we more popular. Cakes like iced buns or hot cross buns were treats from the bakers and hot cross buns only at Easter.

We were a lot more active though, always playing out, in the park, lots of PE at school and parents took us swimming a lot.

What I’m saying is there were less treats on demand and we didn’t really have snack time as some kids have now. Ice creams from a van were a big treat and I recall coming home after playing out getting water from the tap and an apple (from our tree).

I'm also not sure why people are insisting there is no good and bad food. Of course there's bad food, ultra processed food is awful.

@DawntilDusk4 you need help.

You've randomly started banging on about sex offenders on a thread about fruit pastilles.

You say you want to punch people who kiss their children on the lips.

You're implying that those who kiss on the lips don't teach their children about personal boundaries and bodily autonomy and that they are being sexually abused.

You're feeding little kids chocolate with high cocoa solids and acting like that's a superior thing to do. It's not. For one, the caffeine content is much higher and is more likely to impact their development and nervous system. I found out the hard way at at young age with the most crippling migraines.

Your parenting sounds like you spend most of your time projecting onto your kids. They'll grow up with issues.

I don't want extended family kissing my children in lips but I do! It's not just a sexual function reserved for adults it can be an affection between family members

My friend (who herself eats TONS of sugar), for her dd's first birthday, cut all the icing off the cake and just gave her the plain sponge. She also used to do things like, only on birthdays, did her dd get a TINY scraping of jam on toast as "her birthday treat", and then my friend would go on and on and on about how she felt terrible allowing her that bit of fake sugar etc. She was so anal about it. The girl is now much older, my friend still eats cakes and chocolate and biscuits etc in front of her, and the kid will plough through any sweets she can get her hands on at parties etc.

I think in moderation is fine, personally. Life's too short to be too anal about the odd biscuit etc.

@DawntilDusk4 you must have some deep trauma from your own upbringing

I agree with you op.

Maybe the derailing poster should be ignored?

Used to love rich tea biscuits but a digestive is much better!

This. I think it’s a really unhealthy attitude to get kids to associate junk food with being ‘treated’.

It’s the same attitude you see in adulthood - ‘I deserve a glass of wine/pudding’. It can lead to complex and sometimes damaging relationships with food.

I also had a friend who whenever one of our children hurt themselves or was crying for some reason would virtually force a biscuit or chocolate bar on them ‘to make them feel better’. It was literally giving them sugar to make them stop crying. It used to drive me mad!

Why is there so much fuss about a rich tea? It was what the baby group provided, and OP's child was happy with it. Why would she swap it out for some other treat?

I see senses of humour are alive and well this morning…

I agree OP.

The difficulty I find is that everyone who gives a child something sugary imagines it is a "treat" and won't do any harm, but when you aggregate ask these one-off treats then it becomes daily. Play club giving chocolate biscuits one day, a relative giving chocolate bar another, a grandparent giving a multi-pack of haribo the next, a birthday party the following weekend with a party bag of stuff, the hairdresser giving lollipops, a school fayre with a tuck shop, etc. Individually none are major but taken together it really adds up.

I don't get it either. Unless they really want this stuff why do it? I'm guessing the two year old wasn't desperately asking for a fruit shoot and sweets, so why do it?

OP I’m totally with you. Why the hell does a 2yo need a full-sized Mars bar? That would make me so mad. I would have a quiet word with the relatives tbh.

A relative bought my 1yo a chocolate advent calendar once. Just why would you?!!

Porridge is healthy. A biscuit is sugar. A banana is good as it's a fruit. Giving it just before lunch is wrong if it means the child won't eat lunch. Babies shouldn't be eating crisps as they are junk. Pizza is a sandwich and probably has jar based tomato sauce which is full of sugar. If there are no Shreddies in the house the child can't eat it. Shreddies are a highly processed sugary product.

There is nothing wrong with the odd treat. Constantly getting sugary products from parents and family will lead to a lifetime of addiction to processed sugary unhealthy 'food'. To be clear that's biscuits, ice cream, Shreddies, pizza, mars bars, fruit shoots.

If you start the day with Shreddies, lunch is a sandwich and Pizza is dinner, putting 'vegetables' on the pizza is not going to make a blind bit of difference to relations giving the child ice cream. In the USA Pizza is 'classified' as a vegetable. That's how captured the nation is by the food giants.

So OP since you asked start with you. Stop buying those items. Stop giving those items or allowing them to be given. And no I don't have chickens either but my children know that an egg is not made of chocolate.

OK, how is that funny, then? I don’t think I’m lacking a sense of humour but I don’t think this is intended to be funny; the poster genuinely feels that one biscuit is not a treat, because it is a humble Rich Tea!

No I agree with you, especially fruit pastels! Not good for their little teeth and it's not necessary. It's you that's going to be taking him to the dentist, dealing with the sugar rush. It's like they want the child to 'like' them or something .. I have a couple that do it usually parents and MIL. Even though we never got them as kids, kids also expect them now which is annoying too.

Ok, I understand you have a personal phobia on this, but it is actually incredibly natural
before sieves, blenders or even mortars were invented or readily available to have on hand whenever a small toddler needed food, humans, like all great apes, processed food in their mouths first then fed to weening baby mouth to mouth. Eg a rather messy kiss. It is a very natural thing to want to touch your babies mouth with your own mouth that goes way back to our earlier existence. I assume that mums, dads and grandparents and even siblings got in on the act as and when it was needed eg baby grabbing at a tasty morsel

ok, I don’t disagree random strangers kissing your babies mouth is not ok but humans do and will always kiss things they adore or think need nurturing .

I totally agree with you OP, I'm waiting for as long as I can before introducing junk food, it's just unnecessary. They already get plenty of sugar from fruit, nature's candy!

@Cailin66 it was a homemade pizza. Tortilla wrap, tomato purée, grated cheese and topped (in our case) with sweetcorn, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes with some cucumber and more tomatoes on the side. Very nice, from the admittedly slightly nauseously titled What Mummy Makes I didn’t order him a dominoes