to ask if your kids eat junk food?

[happylittlefish]

Surely its okay for kids to have one treat or so a day? Or AIBU? My ds9 is really thin and a typical day for him might be:

• Porridge, banana
• Sandwich/wrap, apple, grapes, crisps/choc biscuit
• Tea
• Malt loaf/yogurt/fruit

His diet isn't that bad is it? Since joining MN I've been doubting it... So do you let your kids have junk food?? What do your kids eat in a typical day???

I also agree with everything in moderation. For eg, dd12 has eaten dead healthy today - porridge, banana, salmon sandwich, grapes, strawberries, apple, peanut butter, plum then roast chicken with veg. But tomorrow for lunch she's taking pasta (white 😁) with chicken, grapes, apple, orange, club bar and tea is shop bought pizza (shoot me 😂)

How can you remember everything your 12 year old has eaten?

I have no idea 😂 she's been home all day helping round the house

Yeah mine eats junk. She's been at a sleepover this weekend and eaten pizza and chips from the takeaway, a happy meal, ice cream at the cinema and came home munching on jelly sweets. She's 13. Rest of the week will be 'normal' home cooked grub and I don't worry about 'junk' at all.

Worra - that's true. My niece was raised on a no sugar, no treats diet. The look on BiL and SiL's faces when my two were allowed to order coke in a restaurant as a treat... But now my niece is at uni, and she's put on about 30lb from non stop junk food, as she's finally got free access to it. Like you say - moderation might sound boring but it works.

Not really. Dh and I don't really either so they just eat the same as us mainly.

However they are school age and eat school dinner 5 days so no idea what they choose half the time. They have desert at school.

Otherwise they have occasional cake out at cafe/ party food or whatever but not day to day.

Although I let my kids have something junky most days, I still worry about their health. I doubt a chocolate biscuit every day will harm them but you never know. Does anyone else worry were harming our kids health ? I mean, even though they're thin, they might not be healthy, right?

Depends on what you define as junk.
Crisps, chocs, fizzy drinks? Including hotdogs, burgers, French fries etc?

We don't like hotdogs or burgers unless the veggie variety. Nothing fried in the frying pan unless it's pancakes or omelettes.
Packed lunch - a sandwich or wrap, salad in pita.
Grapes, strawberries, blueberries etc and/or dried fruit.
No crisps or chocolates in lunchboxes here (school rules guidelines)

Breakfast - cornflakes or wheetabix, toast with Nutella.
Main meals - shepards pie & spag bol (quorn), veggie curry and Mac cheese from scratch all with side vegetables.
Fish fingers/pork sausages with mash, jackets, oven chips.
Nothing wrong with beans on toast either (my DP thinks this isn't a meal) or homemade soup with fresh crispy bread.
Pizza occasionally.

Fruit
Biscuits (daily, small snack packs in lunchbox)
Cake would be a treat, not daily but I bake once a week if I have the time.

Takeaways - fish & chips from the local or a subway 6incher lunch maybe once or twice a month
DD isn't crazy about candy sweets but would eat ice cream daily if left to her own devices
An ice pop after school on warm days.
Water with and without cordials.
Hot chocolate in Autumn/winter.
No fizzy drinks though now she's older she will have a lime cordial and soda water if I have.

DD is 10. I say a little of what you fancy doesn't hurt.

I also believe size of food portions make a huge difference.
I stopped DD having school lunches as they were far too big and she complained to me that staff in the dinner hall would make the children clear their plates (as much as possible).
I strongly disagree with this. DD is a healthy eater and knows when to stop before she's full. I noticed she was putting on some weight around her stomach within the first term of starting school dinners.
Within a few weeks of eating packed lunches she was back to normal.

I define junk as anything overly processed, so crisps/choc/biscuits/hotdogs/pizza etc.
I allow my kids some crisps/chocolate every day, but not sure if its healthy. All the evidence on diet is conflicting so I don't know whether I should withdraw the treat and save it for occasionally??? They're thin, but I don't want to harm their health, iyswim

I'm pretty 'bad' - breakfast always goes down well with near 3yo - so he'll eat 3 weetabix, some fruit and toast, cup of diluted juice. Dinner can usually get homemade spag bol and pasta (or equivalent) in but lunches tend to be snacky 'yellow' food - crisps, chips, crackers and then the addictive petit filous. I'll always try something better first but usually rejected and so i bring out the beige - i also let him have a cake or ice cream usually once a day. He's so slim though that i'm glad he's just eating something although i know its too much sugary stuff. I really struggle to get anything meaty in bar mince based food - i need to be better and freeze stuff etc but i've been saying that for an age and don't do enough of it

happylittlefish I think your DS' diet is fine. In your shoes I would rather have my DC eating (a little of) crisps, choc biscuits each day then say a pile of nutritional school food that clearly packed on extra lbs.

We are biscuit eaters in our house. Store-bought and homemade. So we definitely eat junk food and we are just fine
Imo I think you have less chance of your DS going overboard on junk when he grows up/leaves home as he is already used to a little of everything he likes, in moderation.

My DC eat some form of junk everyday. Often too much but are all slim, healthy with good teeth and eat healthy meals with lots of fruit and veg.

ample, thank you for reassuring me. I didn't think it would harm him, but I wanted to make sure. He's such a skinny little thing, but eats okay so I'm not worried 😊

Happy Perhaps incorporate more veg & fruit? Great for 'filling up' and providing fuel.

The first thing the dentist would ask at checkups - are we curbing fizzy drinks and sugary cereals?
We don't have much of either.
I don't use white sugar when baking. I don't even have it in the house so it can't be used on cereals or to sweeten hot drinks either.

You could cut something out and hold back as a treat if that will ease your worries.
DD likes pick & mix from the supermarket but prefers choc buttons and mice to gummy bears or haribo's. Dentist knows about this too, DD's teeth are tip-top and he just reinforces the benefits of good dental care in case it slacks off
Fwiw I think you're doing just fine
I work at a school and have seen children open lunch boxes with two jam doughnuts inside or eating only a bag a crisps....that would be a 150g bag. No nutritional value there!
What keeps the children alert during afternoon sessions is anyone's guess

Sorry xpost

We have a takeaway about 3 or 4 times a month, I buy crisps and biscuits but when they're gone that's it. Most of mine are teens or older so I can't say they don't over indulge sometimes because they have their own money and access to shops. Two things which I restrict in the house are fizzy pop and sweets. I very rarely buy them and none of my kids have fillings and neither do I at 39.

Everyday some kind of treat a couple of times. Always after a meal.
We have 3 meals, no snacks, drink water. Every meal has some kind of veg.

After lunch and after dinner my ds is allowed to choose a treat, might be a few flumps or a fairy cake size cake, or kiddy crisps or a kiddy ice lolly. If he wants anything else after he can have cheese and cracker or a jam cracker which he enjoys too. I don't really mind what he wants after meals, I don't bother with those snack treats that are pretending to be healthy like oat things or bear paw type treats because he has never been a meal refuser, so doesn't try to use treats as a substitute for real food.
I would probably be more cautious with sugar if he was a water refuser and use greek yogurt or crisps more often.

You can only try your best while they're little but let me tell you once they're teens and on the loose it all goes to pot I'm afraid to say. My teens hate me 'controlling' the junk food in the house like I used to. To be honest I've given up as they can just go and get it themselves

Never quite sure what junk food is...I tend to give as much healthy stuff as poss ( fruit, veg, wholegrains) but some less healthy things daily too. e.g choc bicci after school, choc mousse for pudding, crisps sometimes, let them eat haribo from party bags. Try to cook from scratch but bought stuff 1-2x per week. Like bought pasta sauce, pizzas, occasional ready meals, takeaway about every 6 weeks or so. Admittedly i don't buy really cheap burgers/nuggets and things, but i do get much higher quality versions of burgers, fish fingers (waitrose do great ones with genuine fish in), hotdogs for ds and potato waffles that we have occasionally.
Also, at risk of being eaten alive by people with , I let ds (5), have squash pretty much whenever he asks for it! I like squash too.
We are all still here and pretty healthy all over.

Good to see that people have the same attitude as me 😊 we get takeaways on birthdays or special occasions, other times its usually homemade meals (apart from tonight which is shop bought pizza 😉)

I do. I try and limit it to weekend treats, but my kids are allowed some chocolate or strawberry milk everyday. My junk food intake was very monitored growing up, and I think that contributed to my binge eating and hiding food habits. I don't want to do the same to my kids.

I think I've made my mind up. I'll give ds a yogurt/malt loaf instead of the choc bar/crisps every day. He can have those at weekends if he wants. I just want him to grow up with a healthy attitude to food.
Today in his lunch I've put a salmon & cucumber wholemeal sandwich, apple, grapes, orange & a big yogurt pot. 😊

fitfatty What do you mean by monitored? No treats at all?
I worry sometimes whether I monitor too much, but my friends kids who have open access to sweets and biscuits don't eat their main meals one is very over weight. It's hard to strike a balance.

I was allowed to have a small bowl of crisps and a fizzy drink on Friday nights and once a month during the car trip to my grandparents house. The cookies/crisps/etc in the house were counted and watched by my mother and if she noticed some missing we'd get in trouble (usually me, as I would get a lecture on how "nice and thin I am now" and do I want to get fat like XXXXXX). My brothers and father were encouraged second helpings and desserts, I was give a smaller portion and frowned at. It was also drilled into me that exercise = eating more so I exercised a lot (too much), in hopes of getting more food, which left me famished and I ended up sneaking what food I could.