To remove all sweets and chocolate from the house?

[BatFor]

We eat relatively healthy, mostly home cooked meals from scratch with the odd takeaway as a treat, and I’ve never been one to be overly strict on sweets etc as long as the kids are eating healthily otherwise.

However, DS 10 has put on a noticeable amount of weight recently, and I’ve realised that he’s been sneaking significant amounts of treats (on top of healthily meals).

I’ve tried being more watchful over what he eats. I buy very few treats for the house myself (mainly just multipacks of popcorn, crisps and cereal bars), but I have a well meaning but misguided aunt who brings an inordinate amount of junk food for the kids when she visits at the weekend, think £10-15 worth each time. I’ve asked her politely and told her bluntly not to bring so much, but she continues to do so, and the treats tend to hang around after they leave and get eat throughout the week by the whole family. This is a bone of contention in itself, and I’ve often ended up chucking huge quantities of it in the bin.

It’s been coming to a head recently, and we’ve found large amounts of empty/hidden wrappers in his room several times, which led us to banning any food upstairs. However, I’ve just argued with him again this evening as I caught him trying to sneak treats upstairs, and in a fit of annoyance I’ve chucked all the chocolate and sweets out and have told the kids that in future, they can have some treats on the day that my aunt visits, but everything else will be donated or chucked.

AIBU? I feel mean for making everyone suffer, but it’s rightly annoying me.

Please don't THROW food away. Jesus Christ! Take it to a food bank or a children's hospital or SOMEWHERE....don't chuck it

But, yes, you definitely need to stop your child stealing and avoid the child putting on weight

For those of you getting wound up about throwing food out, I did say chuck/donate, meaning chuck the opened stuff and donate the unopened.

No matter how hungry people are, I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate eating cakes or bars that have teeth marks in them.

If he has ADHD then it's rather different.

Your aunt should stop, she's not being supportive of her nephew at all.

As someone with ADHD, I'd suggest you think about why he's sneaking the food, it's to get the dopamine hit.

Think of it as self-medicating.

That said, obesity rates are far higher for people with ADHD, so helping him moderate this (or actually medicating him effectively) will help him in the long-term. I can't have shit in the house and I'm in my 50s.

Arguing and chucking no.

Addressing and donating yes.

With ADHD yiu need to teach skills, talk about reasons, come up with strategies, develop house support. He will have to manage alone at some point so you have to teach him how to manage it.

Your child is going to have life long issues with food. Well done.

When my DS was 12 I had a real panic because he gained weight and was considered overweight according to BMI for the first time ever. I made him come for walks / jogs with me in the evening which he hated. Turns out he was just going through puberty, he shot up in height and the weight balanced out so now he’s a healthy weight. No massive diet change, he just grew!

People on here are crazy! He's already shown he has no impulse control due to his ADHD so of course you need to get rid of the excess junk one way or another. The OP isn't completely banning it, she's saying one day a week is enough - which it definitely is.

Limiting crap to one day a week is not going to give him food issues for life, that's ridiculous - if he has food issues as an adult then it will be due to his impulse control still not being there, not because he only had sweets once a week as a child. In fact having that routine of once a week may well help with his impulse control.

Personally I don't even think you should be having all those crisps/popcorn/breakfast bars, tbh OP it's all complete crap. Make your own popcorn, it's cheap easy and won't be coated in sugar. Eating crisps everyday is really bad for you and cereal bars have huge amounts of sugar - you probably might as well be giving them some tastier junk.

Could you just get rid of it all from the house, and not have any junk at home, without making an issue of it? I’d never have sweets, chocolate or biscuits at home because I’d probably mindlessly eat them. My children don’t ever ask for these things because they are just not there. I am conscious that restricting anything makes it more tempting, so they are welcome to have a cake or desert if we are out or at a party, and I’d never refer to it as a treat. But I don’t want any of us to view junk as part of a normal daily diet, so I just don’t have it at home.

This. Just a sensible boundary.

£10-15 doesn’t really buy a ‘huge’ amounts these days does it? Depends how many are sharing I suppose but a big bar of dairy milk is £4 alone.

can you direct her towards showing her love in a different way? Tell her how much he would like the next book in his favourite series etc.

I think you’re right just keep the treats for when aunt visits.

if he likes things like cake maybe make some low sugar muffins (sweetened with ripe bananas and blueberries) or chocolate beetroot / courgette cake etc
Get him to help prepare fruit or salad for keeping in the fridge for snacking etc

I don't know where you live but nobody pays £4 for a big bar of dairy milk around here. The share size chocolate/sweets are always on offer for £1.25ish each.

Ahh it’s so tricky. My mum would hide biscuits and treats from us, and only buy things that were lower calorie, and would put the sweet treats (curly wurly and milky bars) in the freezer so that they took longer to eat. Needless to say, her own difficulties with food affected all three daughters who’ve each had different kinds of eating disorders in early or later adulthood. One daughter was indirectly labeled the “fat” one and despite her recent amazing efforts and huge weight loss, both parents still constantly make jokes about her loving mayonnaise and chips and cheese. I’ve quite seriously explained to them that they must stop but family dynamics reset to childhood so easily.

not that that is a reflective picture of your family at all—you sound really healthy minded, but a lot of subtle damage can be done by food control. If I were you I’d seek professional advice on how to handle it best.

Do it. I had home cooked food at home but my childhood was full of sweets and snacks. My DP’s were/are overweight/obese. I was obese at 8. A lifelong battle ensued against obesity for me and my siblings. When I moved abroad at 18 I realised just how fucked up my family eating habits were/are.

I never denied my DC treats but it was not free rein like I had. My Dc have never been overweight or obese and they have a much better relationship with food and alcohol than I do. They’ve been at Uni since they turned 18 and have full autonomy in what they buy to eat and drink (within a £100 a week budget for all necessities outside rent and bills which we pay directly). They’re 20 now and still healthy and much much much healthier than me.

Blimey where do you live... Those 100g share bags I have recently not seen lower than £1.65 when on offer apart from when Sainsbury's did a week of them for less than £1.00.

I suggest you could also increase the amount of protein and "normal" fat he has in his diet to try to reduce his hunger. Full fat milk, full fat yoghurt etc. He will still be growing and probably needs calories but in a better way so try to stop sugar cravings. Perhaps a low GI snack when he gets home from school, and get him researching and baking healthy stuff himself so he understands food. I find making a cake and you see how much sugar goes into it a shock!

I tried that reverse psychology thing of having treats freely available but controlling fruit & veg. Didn't work but my (now adult) kids remember that experiment very fondly. I know it's frustrating, but you will laugh about all of this in years to come.

Could you maybe explain situation with aunt, also explain that you love that she treats the kids every time she comes and suggest she brings a different treat? Maybe just a cake, or start giving them pocket money instead which they can put in the bank. Or if there is a hobby or interest they have she could get them something to do with that. Her treats don't have to be confectionary.

My DSS was like this and you would go into the kitchen and whole packets of biscuits would be gone, or 6 pack of chocolate mousses and he would take them to his room and eat the lot, it was out of greed though, not a medical condition, he laughs about it now he is nearly 30

"I buy very few treats for the house myself, mainly just multi-packs of popcorn, crisps and cereal bars . . ." If this is your definition of 'very few treats' it is no wonder your son's weight is creeping up.