How do you get your DC to be less fiendish about sugar and snacks?

[botheredbythis]

12 year old DS loves sweet stuff and fizzy drinks. I'm very into healthy food, and constantly push alternatives and make homemade nutritious food for every meal pretty much.

But he's pretty wilful, he's experiencing more independence, walks back and to school/all of his peers eat a load of crap - and so we're in this place where it's really hard to manage/control/steer. Telling him he "can't" is only effective so far.

I wondered how people manage this? Should we give him an allowance per week and when it's used up, it's used up? This would work for out of school stuff, but his lunch and snacks at school come off a prepaid card - theoretically, he could still sneak crap food in as the canteen tills don't itemise everything specifically.

I also think it's a personality thing. Or an age thing. Or a neurodivergent thing. I don't know.

I do know that it's not about our "restrictive approach" because we haven't really restricted, just tried to encourage a balance.

I dont know why people try to find deep and meaningful explanations as to why people/children like sugary/carby or junk foods

The reality is that humans gravitate toward calorie dense foods and manufactored and processed foods combine sugar and fats in a way that we desire. Its how they sell foods.

Food is freely available, literally every street will have an eating opportunity, cheap, tasty, desirable.

There doesnt need to have been any emotional association with types of food in the house (and from OP there doesnt seem to be in this case), there doesnt need to be any dopamine/neurodivergent stuff going on. Those factors may be present for some people and they add another complex layer on top for some people. For some of us, and Im one of them, carbs in starchy or refined forms make us crave more food, any food so we need to stay away from them. There is more research year on year about how the hunger hormones operate differently for different people which is why some people have no 'off' switch and its difficult knowing in children whether thats the case or whether like most children they're just filling up on stuff they like, because they can.

But for the average person who eats stuff that might not be optimal, or who is overweight, its simply because it tastes nice and the make up of the food makes us want to eat more of it.

There's a child in my dc school whose mother is very strict about sweets chocolates etc, is a total animal at parties and on play dates, stuffs themselves with treats and would look greedy if you didn't understand the situation

You have some biscuits in your house sometimes?!

I don't have a massively sweet tooth but I currently have two open packets and three unopened ones. Also (looking in cupboard) have a few chocolate bars, some puddings in fridge, ice cream in freezer etc. Easter eggs and boxes of chocolates given as a present on a shelf.

It sounds as if you're much stricter about sweets in the house than most people, and your son is rebelling against this now he has the chance. I would focus more on making eating at home more enjoyable and luxurious and he honestly won't want to eat only crap at school.

Having said this, he's also an adolescent boy and they need more calories than you can imagine. So maybe also focus more on big breakfasts, porridge, eggs, smoothies, etc to make sure he's not leaving the house hungry?

I just don’t buy it. I would give him money to get junk food once a week.

I am another one who doesn't restrict junk food for DC.
Sweet stuff just becomes another option and doesn't hold the excitement for mine that I see in friends DC who seem to inhale it when they come around.
We have chocolate, biscuits, fizzy drinks, crisps etc in now and it doesn't fly out of the cupboards. In fact 90% of it will probably be there next week still.

Teen DC are healthy weights and 99% of the time will decline a dessert if we eat out. It's just not that interesting to them anymore and they prefer water or milk to drink.

Sorry to hijack but how are you getting packed lunch at £20 a month. That is around £1 per day? Not sure I could make a decent sandwich for that never mind the crisps/fruit etc.

If you go on about or restrict he will end up with disordered eating and obsess more about the crap.

To an extent all teens do this. I know I did. But as long as you're serving and modelling a balanced and healthy diet at home then long term he will have a good foundation.

Don't forget that teens do need an absolute ton of carbs to get through all that growing etc.

My friend's son is like this - she is so controlling with him than whenever she is out of sight, he is like a caged animal set free

Stop with the constant monitoring!
You will drive him to secret bingeing.

You are going to find the teen years very difficult with this approach. He will soon want to be out with mates for trips to the cinema or days out etc. Are you expecting to sit eating carrot sticks whilst his mates have popcorn and coke?

Also, teens eat a lot - especially boys.

Carry on giving him good nutritious meals when you are feeding him - but don't make a fuss about them. It's just what you've made for dinner. Have a wide range of snacks available and give him some independence.

OP, I’m following with interest and I think we ought to try to instil healthy habits in our DC as it isn’t enough to ‘chill’ when there’s an obesity crisis.

Unless it's partly the controlling, restrictive attitude to food that causes the problem and sets up an unhealthy black and white attitude to eating, and therefore fuels the obesity crisis. I agree about the chilling out. We've always been pretty chilled out about snacks, sweet stuff with our dc (now 15 and 17) and they are a) slim and b) have a far, far more take-it-or-leave-it attitude to junk than I ever have! Their Easter eggs last them months, which I find frankly baffling!

DS1 does have ADHD so could be a neurodivergent thing.

It's not an age thing in his case. He's always been like that. When he was a toddler, if I told him he could have 1 or 2 biscuits, he would totally lose it if I said no more. I don't mean a toddler tantrum. I used to have to hide them and pretend they were all gone to get him to accept it.

I thought I had caused it because he used to never eat, and my mum suggested letting him fill up on junk so that he would understand what feeling full meant. This did not work. However I did then enforce normal portions after this so I feel like I did in theory "enough" to undo it if that was the cause.

It was just a rough figure but homemade will be cheaper than canteen or Tesco meal deal.
Mine has a wholemeal sandwich thin with ham & cheese and an apple usually so £1 is probably a good guess (she’s yr 12 now and has had pretty much that all secondary school)

Can people please stop saying I'm restrictive. We have crap food here. There is always stuff in the cupboards. Always.

Honestly, read the posts.

It's too late. You've made it a "thing", so now it's a thing.

I'm sorry, I'm calling BS on this.

I really, really do not believe that talking about how much crap a kid eats, and trying to get them to make better choices - without stopping the crap, which we haven't done, he has barely has his habits dented - is making it a 'thing'.

So, we should have said nothing when everyday he wants to get a big bag of sweets, a coke, and have pain chocolats, biscuits, and other pastries at school? Just completely rolled with it?

Just stop giving him money.

OP some people just have a sweet tooth and teenagers have little impulse control. I went absolutely made for sweet stuff when I started secondary as I suddenly had so much more opportunity to access junk food.

I’ve always been sporty and eaten healthy meals on top of the sweet/junk stuff and have always been a healthy weight, had good teeth etc. I’d just let him get on with unless he starts to put on weight, which is unlikely if he’s a growing, active boy!

I think personality has a lot to do with it. We've always had quite a relaxed attitude to snacks and sweets but have 3 kids who are not overly food motivated, so were able to self regulate and have grown into adults/teens who are slim with healthy attitudes to food.
With your DS I would pretty much continue as you are. Eat as a family, have a mix of packed lunch and school dinner, some snacks at home and let him spend his pocket money as he wants.
If he's eating a mostly balanced diet, is active and not overweight he can eat junk some of the time. I wouldn't sweat it to be honest.
Set your own limits but don't over police his choices - however cruddy! He will almost certainly grow out of it.

@botheredbythis

But how is he managing to buy a big bag of sweets every day at school? My 13 year old has the money on his account for food at school, he doesn’t carry cash with him so wouldn’t be able to pop to the shop.

He was out with his friends yesterday and they all went to the chip shop for lunch and no doubt went to the shop and bought some chocolate or something. It is the holidays though and I can’t really follow my son around …. They’re also on their bikes for hours. I think you have actually made it a thing. School days they do consume less sugar without really even registering.

My kids used to be really good at helping themselves to fruit and eating pretty healthily at home. Now my teens have pocket money and walking distance to co op and McDonald's, it's non stop junk food and fizzy drinks. They'll even get themselves a pot noodle if they don't want my healthy dinner.

It's a battle I have lost, I will continue to buy the fruit and veg that they will eat and hope that some nutrition makes it in on top of all the shit. They are not overweight but I hate all the sugar that they are mainlining.

I said he "wants to buy" - he campaigns for it - I didn't say he had the money for it

Does he get any pocket money?

Basically, snacks and sweet things taste good and our bodies think we want them. It’s very hard for teenagers, who don’t tend to feel crap when they eat crap, to look ahead and make sensible choices all the time, especially when you throw peer pressure and local shops into the mix.
In our society these days, snacks and junk food are pushed on us all the time and it’s hard enough as an adult to avoid them and make sensible choices.
I would probably just make sure that he has a good breakfast, maybe a healthy snack and a good dinner, keep talking about why good food nourishes us and hope he comes out of the other side as an adult who eats well most of the time and eats junk sometimes.

Just get him involved in grocery shopping. Let him pick whatever snacks sweets he wants for the week and once it's gone it's gone.

Don't comment on his food if you are - making his food choices seem shameful is the highway route to disordered eating in teens.

You'd be surprised at what would happen if you just chill and let him get it out of his system. I grew up with a mom who was like you and as an adult became obese due to not being able to say no to finally having all the sweets but the shame of it meant I then restricted and binged.

Now a healthy weight after going "all in" and having cupboards stuffed with sweets. Funnily enough when you know you can have as much as you want anytime it's not so appealing anymore, because your brain stops going into a scarcity mindset.