To never buy snacks/squash/sweets etc again

[Fiera]

Every single time there is somthing remotely snackly in the house it just gets taken and eaten. The large double concentrate bottles of squash gone within 24 hours, any kind of sugary cerial gone the same day they come through the door.
I dont like to use the word 'steal' but tonight its the only word i can use because my daughter actually STOLE my can of coke.
We never usually buy coke or Fizzy anything, nut it was my eldest sons birthday and all the children had a can as a very rare treat. My daughter actualli hid my can up her sleeve (after having drank hers earlier in the evening) and went and drank it in her bedroom.
Even my toddler daughters 'treats' like 'GoGo' biscuits and 'Goodies' puffs just disapear before she even knows theyre there.
We have a full fruit bowl, two actually, every day and even they get emptied. They have hot meals every day so theyre not 'hungry' just greedy.
I just dont understand why they do it and im seriously considering just not buying again.
My toddler will happily drink water (theres hardly ever any squash left for her anyway)

My grandma said "Elephants and Tigers drink water and look how big they grow" when we wanted something else. I bought the treats for the weekend. a six pack of crisps, biscuits, a bottle of pop. When it was gone that was it. Amazing how the children made it last then. Better and cheaper than a dentists bill. Small fruit juice for breakfast which I doled out. Fruit or yoghurt for pudding. Teenagers do eat an enormous amount. Pasta dishes made and put in the fridge were welcomed. Also anything you can microwave at 10pm at night, when they get the munchies.

Haven't RTFT as I got bored of watching people tear strips off one another by page 2, but @pumpkintree (and anyone else who may have commented in a similar way since then) I let my DS eat more crap than he should sometimes, because sometimes I'm tired and lazy. Sometimes we're having a day trip as a treat (like today for example) and I let him choose whatever he wants to eat as I see it as part of the treat. He's a good eater, and eats a variety of food, including fruits and vegetables. I don't have to ration chocolate with him, as half of a Fredo bar is enough (he's NEVER finished one), however he'd eat a full punnet of grapes and give himself the runs if let to. He never has water to drink, as he doesn;t drink enough of it, and the dehydration is worse than the sugar/acid in juice when he's good with teeth brushing in my opinion. He's a healthy weight and his teeth are fine. If any of those things change, so will his diet. Just so you know not everyone fibs about their child's diet

''Describing a can of Coke as a ‘very rare treat’ is a bit of an odd relationship to have with food.''

not really no, fat too many households i know go through junk food in their bucket loads and this in the long term sets up nothing but problems. Healthy food has a much better impact on us-these habits start young. Look at the state of the obesity and tooth decay these days across Britain... Amazes me how ppl who try to be healthy get pressured and heckled over it. Seems there is big social pressure not only from advertising but from society itself to be unhealthy.

Sorry haven’t RTFT I read the best tip on snack control on MN:on shopping day give each child a Tupperware box of the same variety of snacks and once it’s gone then they’ll have to wait until the next week. It means each child gets fair dibs on snacks and you can limit the junk and budget for it.

I buy a French stick or a couple during the school holidays and they are the main snack for my dcs they can have butter, jam, peanut butter, cheese, marmite on it and it’s economical

@boywiththebrokensmile definitely. I don't turn down cake at work anymore, I take some and then try to get rid of it some way. Had to bin 2 donuts today as there was no way of getting out of it - if you say you don't want any it's like you're criticising everyone else and it turns into a major drama. They're absolutely disgusting donuts, why anyone would think it's a treat is beyond me.

Hi. I'm diabetic and have blood in my eye because of it. So I think you need to limit sugar. Fruit might be healthy but the majority is loaded with sugar. They are teenagers so need to be aware of the dangers. Sounds like the little one will be healthiest! You can get loads of sugar free and no added sugar products. I hope you sort the problem. Good luck xx

Agree that biscuits, crisps etc should be for treats. If they get eaten and/or drunk in the case of drinks like coke, then I would tell my two that when it's gone, it's gone until the next shop.

Shocked at some people’s lack of knowledge about what’s ok to eat. Giving a young child pepperami and dairy lea as snacks they’re highly processed and full of salt. Also a child’s sugar allowance for the day is only 20 grams. Look at what’s in a bowl of Kellogg’s or Nestle cereal - recommend portion 30g 10g of which is sugar. Actual average portion is 60g as 40g is nothing, therefore a child’s entire sugar allowance all gone on breakfast.

I mean instead of 30g, not 40g.

If a child is actually hungry give them some actual food not a sweet. It’s not a good habit to eat sweets to satisfy hunger.

Oh and flavoured water. It’s got aspartame in. This is really unhealthy. Water is sufficient and a piece of fruit, no squash, no flavoured water, no fizzy drinks (although if they like fizzy drinks try some juice with fizzy water just as nice if not nicer).

Is it a big family thing? My partner is from a big family & everyone eats really quickly & has loads - I was shocked when I first met them all - I’d take twice as long to eat dinner! And when everyone wants to make sure they get “their share” they get greedy?

The biggest favour you can do for your kids is to be a good role model. So just don't don't drink coke at home. Be a grown up. No-one needs to drink coke.

We used to have a few so called "treat foods/ drink". We stopped because I could no longer bear the fighting over who had what share of whatever. All within 24 hours if the family shop. Regular consumption of 4 litres of orange juice in 24 hours, week in week out, and with arguments to boot = water.

To describe buying and eating crap as a TREAT is perverse.
It is crap, full of crap, nice but crap.
Do not go down the crap isle in the supermarket and do not buy it and bring it into the house.
That is the best treat you can do for your family.

Rubbish foods and drinks are really addictive and some adults and children (myself included) find it difficult to control themselves, especially when they are stressed The only way to limit intake IMHO is to not have the stuff in the house, then you have to make healthy choices at home, automatically limiting intake by making it a treat when not at home.
Water is a free drink.

I think it's fine to stop buying those or alternatively have a lunch box / tupperware box for each teen with one packet of crisps or chocolate bar per child/teen and a healthy snack each. Then lock away anything that you've bought for your youngest.

There might be other healthier high protein snacks (as protein is filling) that they could have free access to such as cooked chicken, cheese, humous with carrot sticks or oat cakes.

Also perhaps if your teens like the kind of snacks that you give to your little one then you should just buy those for everyone and keep a couple aside for your toddler.

@munsthewordyouknow regarding the pepperami and dairy lea snack boxes, this was 20 years ago, long before we all started getting sand in our vaginas about processed food, however I did a lot of homemade cooking and never added salt, as I said he's a for and healthy man now and as a wee bit he had the chicken pox and one bad head cold, he was never at gp, he loved fresh berries too, he had a little bit of everything tbh. I didn't want him being a fussy kid and let him try anything, looking back the jalepeno was perhaps an error we laugh about it now . He loved cheese cut up and cucumber too and ham not the cheap shitty stuff, 20 years on it would be crudites and dips and pineapple

Seems some people can’t read or deliberately ‘ misread’ for effect.

sprinkles
I did say “ it CAN be lethal” not it is....and graphista I wasn’t talking specifically about teens.
Yes. I really am a nurse! I deal with the consequences. Obesity is a huge health risk, unlimited access to unhealthy snacks leads to obesity!

It’s not just heart attacks, amputations and strokes, it’s the misery that goes with uncontrolled Diabetes, the constant thrush, the painful feet, loss of eyesight and kidney function, the leg ulcers that don’t heal for months. The bad knees from years of being overweight. Being short of breath, having swollen legs from the extra strain on your heart.
One would hope, yes that dc would have learned some self control and healthy eating habits but if they haven’t and eat more than they should I think the locked cupboard for treats is a bloody good idea. Who would want their kids to run the risk of facing this in their adulthood.

I wonder if the fact that you rarely have these things in the house makes them much more appealing?

However, it sounds like you need some sort of storage solution, somewhere where kids wouldn't dream of looking, like a box of shoe polish with a secret stash of your choice carefully hidden underneath in a secret compartment.

Hiding food? Really? That's fetishising food. That's the nub of the problem here.

So those who say that hiding food is a cause of the problem, what do you suggest to stop a weeks worth of crap being eaten in one day by uncontrolable gannets?

Buying more is not the answer because they'll just eat more.

I would question the underlying problem leading them to stuff their faces like 'uncontrollable gannets'.

I think many children will just indulge excessively if they can. My eldest is like this... the other night she asked for cereal as a supper before bed and although I said yes, I asked that she eat it at the table. She wanted to eat it in front of the tv and I wouldn’t let her so she was ‘meh, can’t be bothered moving!’which just really summed up how hungry she really was!!

I think it is so easy to just fill cupboards with rubbish and let them chomp their way through but ultimately this is is why we have an obesity epidemic and I think how you stock your cupboards and fridge teaches your child as much for their adult years as all the ‘lets have a healthy balance ‘ chat.

Oh, and volume of squash drunk didn’t bother me as much as number of cups filled , sipped at, abandoned and poured down the sink so it’s water all the way here now!!! Lol!!

I think it totally depends on the child. I was very much like this and just ate and ate. I loved ice creams and lollies especially, and we had loads of cheap packs of crisps and fake branded bars in the house. I was underweight and teased a lot for it. I was very anxious about my stick arms and legs and used to read articles about how to put on weight. I used to save pocket money to buy those build up shakes for between meals. I genuinely did just like snacks and spent a lot of time at home reading books and munching. I also used to make extra sandwiches between meals to try and put on weight.

It’s fairly normal for young girls and boys to be the build I was, even now. What would be the point in my mum locking away snacks and treats or stopping buying them? I wasn’t anywhere near overweight (wasn’t even a normal weight!) and my teeth were and are excellent.

This one size fits all extreme attitude shown here is showing a lack of experience and as I said initially, seems to be more common amongst women who struggle with their own weight, and the idea that people must be desperate to put it on just never occurs to them.