How many food treats do you allow?

[PregnantGrrrl]

Out of curiosity, how often do you allow things like biscuits / chips/ crisps etc? And how old are the kids?

I started out a puritanical foodie, but things seem to be slipping...i wonder if i'm just being too anal though

I don't allow routine snacking on junk and don't store any treat food in the house - no biscuits, crisps, chocolate etc etc. Which means that I have to make a choice to buy it in, if I want anyone to have any. That helps keep it to a minimum because you do think twice if you have to go out and buy it in rather than having a cupboard filled with it!

I do have a treats jar for the kids, which is filled with sugar free sweets and is regulated. Abuse of the treat jar means I put it away for the rest of the month.

This is because I am terrified of the kids getting fat (like me)

They get lots of food treats, don't get me wrong....but they are treats - not a part of daily life.

I know kids who go to school every day eating sweets and are taken to the shop after school (or met at the gate with sweets) every day then get home and have some crisps and more sweets. I think that is totally OTT. It's not even that most of these kids are fat but it's not healthy.

So they can get something from the machine after swimming, and occasionally there'll be something after beevers & cubs, plus there's fish & chips on a Friday, about twice a month now and the odd bit from dh - who seems unable to say no when he goes to the shops with them.

I may be a wee bit OTT though....if my kids see we've got cake or buns or crisps or something, they ask if it's someone's birthday! (and it usually is)

I'll take that 'Anal Queen' crown from you now, I thank you very much.

oh, and they are 7 & 8 years old.

Mine are 3 and 5. They eat well so I don't mind them having the odd treat. Often after Kindergarten they may have a couple (literally) of sweets (there are some jelly beans in the cupboard at the mo that grannie bought them) or a fromage frais or something. We don't tend to have crisps or biscuits in the house anyway. We quite often have cake in the afternoon also.

For me it's about balance. If they were refusing fruit and veg and 'proper' food, then there'd be no treats. But with things as they are, a small amount of sweetie food doesn't outweigh all the good stuff they eat....IMO.

Mine are 8 and 10. We don't have biscuits or crisps in the house, and only have chips from the chip shop about once a month.

But we do have cakes/scones/muffins etc (mostly homemade) and also things like kitkats and jaffa cakes. They have something of this sort at the end of every meal (as long as they've eaten well.)

mine is only 16mths, and he eats a huge range of fruit and veg, loves pasta, rice etc.

the last few days he's had a digestive biscuit each day as a snack though, and i feel awful about it I'm very conscious of his teeth and health, and i do worry about it being a slippery slope to him being the kid i see most mornings who's obese and eats crisps on the way to school (see...anal!)

we brush his teeth, he never has chocolate as he has a problem with milk at the moment. he has organix snack stuff a few times a week, and once a fortnight we get chip shop tea, and he has a fishcake and a few unsalted chips.

Does that sound awful? I feel like i'm being slack with his diet tbh.

I'm more likely to give DS chocolate or some biscuits. He hasn't had sweets yet, simply because I don't have them in the house and he's not big enough to know what they are and then ask for them (he's 2.2).

If he eats well at meal times, he has some pudding. Sometimes this is some chocolate but sometimes it's yoghurt or a juice lolly.

TBH, I'd rather that stuff like biscuits and "treat" foods were just a normal part of his diet and that he didn't see such food as a treat, just another part of his diet that he has to moderate.

hi PregnantGrrrl, i'm in the same boat as you. I've been giving my 15 month dd too many of those Organix snacks for convenience reasons really, so have resolved this week to cut them out other than every now and then - and to give her fruit, mini rice cakes, breadsticks etc instead. I think the odd digestive is fine, but maybe not every day? Otherwise he might start to want biscuits and refuse other stuff? Everything in moderation etc. There was a fab article in the SUnday Times Style mag yesterday about not denying children anything and making it "forbidden fruit" - i;ll try and find it and post the link.

here it is

women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/diet_and_fitness/article2625022.ece

thanks for that.

i was brought up quite strictly with food- sweets were MAYBE once a week, and usually from my Gran. Crisps and pop were never kept in the house, we weren't allowed to help ourselves to food. The other kids at school were always facinated with our lunchboxes, because we had sunflower seeds and kiwi fruit (this was the mid 80s)

as a result, i have always loved healthy foods, and even now, a white bread ham sandwich feels naughty!

I don't want my kids to be fat or unhealthy, but at the same time i want them to know how lovely a bar of chocolate is, or a bag of chips. I just worry about getting slack and realising he's eating rubbish. (He does police himself to an extent though- at his 1st birthday he rejected the cake and demanded tomatoes instead!)