"oh no I am never allowed chocolate it is ^really^ bad for you and rots your teeth and makes you fat"

[CrushWithEyeliner]

I am a TA and this was said to me by a 4 yo girl when discussing favorite foods and trying new things.

I really felt sad for her to have been indoctrinated so negatively about a food that in moderation can be really enjoyable. I honestly believe this attitude causes eating disorders and I don't understand why some parents feel the need to drum in things like this. Are they scared their children are going to get obese or what?

I think it's a bad idea to be so extreme about treat foods. There's a strong possibility that the guilt this girl feels when she inevitably discovers the delights of chocolate could be the start of a disturbed relationship with food.

I had an eating disorder for many years. My mother was and remains completely obsessed by people's weight.

I gorged on chocolate when I had an eating disorder because it was forbidden. Now it's not longer forbidden I couldn't care less about it.

I give dd two squares of chocolate in her lunch box - I have to hide it as they are not allowed to have chocolate at school, even though they can bring Mars, Snickers etc etc etc. I'm sure there's much worse stuff in those and probably as much chocolate as there is in two little squares, so I just carry on being subversive.

Anyway, the child referred to in the OP will become Willie Wonka and that's really show them!

The parents didn't say they didn't want the girl to have chocolate because its addictive. They said it makes you fat and rots your teeth. Caffine is addictive but you can drink coffee quite often without becoming addicted. It is unnecessary to avoid all foods which may have addictive qualities. Refined carbs are addictive but its bad for children to have too much unrefined carbs.

chugga..read the last paragraph again.
What's inconclusive is what it is about chocolate that is addictive,
NOT the fact that people crave chocolate.

The research was done precisely to understand the cravings!
I.e. 'What makes chocolate the food that is craved more often than any other food?' (2nd paragraph)

Hammertime, but it can make you fat and it can rot your teeth,
if you eat excessive amounts.
Moderation, though, is a challenge with addictive substances.
Chocolate is not essential nor particularly beneficial.
Hence, let's cut it out completely. The parents have a point.

daddyj- craving something does not = addiction, therefore if you dont know what makes it addictive you cant catagorically say it is.
do you have any other links about the nature of "craving" that would clarify why you say it is addictive?

I think that cakes and chocs are fine, in moderation.
My children are very active, slim and healthy. On a friday after school let them choose a choc treat and we go home and watch a DVD. This is all the TV and treats they get for the whole week, unless they are going to a party or visitng grandparents where they allowed free reign.
They are def not addicted to choc!
I concentrate more on healthy food that makes you strong than negative connotations.

The food police... Christ, they're dull.

Mean spirited imo

You are a cheeky monkey, DaddyJ, I do actually know my stuff about nutrition and health research. You'll have to do better than that to convince me that chocolate is so hideously dangerous that children must be shielded from it at all costs.

agree with you there edam- he seems to be saying that a marsbar is equivalent to valium.
For what its worth, when you are cold and wet and four hours walk from shelter, say on a D of E expedition, then I would say that chocolate would have enormous benefit to those who consume it. Its all about the context of what else you are eating, and activity taken by the individual seen as a whole not the type of food itself.

Daddyj I know it can make you fat and it can rot your teeth but not exclusively so. All foods make you fat if your intake exceeds the energy you use. Fruit rots your teeth. People had rotton teeth before sugar was widely available. The trick is to look after your teeth properly rather than not put food into your mouth. Moderation of chocolate is not a struggle for most people. It is cheap and widely available but most people are not addicted to it.

lol edam, I am trying to be serious

Which is not easy on a thread where people use the word 'sad'
and even 'barbaric' (only on Mumsnet ) with reference to a girl
whose parents have persuaded her that chocolate is crap.

We should be delighted for her.

Because chocolate is crap, ubiquitous mass-marketed crap.
Children don't need it and given its addictive attributes
introducing it to kids from an early age seems an odd thing to do.

Ah, chugga, I see you are trotting out the industry line:
craving is not technically addiction so everything is fine, nothing to see here.
Look, they even have a page about that. Chocolate is just like sport, apparently.
And if you check their About Page you find all the usual suspects including our old friends Nestle and McDonald's.
Highly amusing including the wonderful name:
European Food Information Council

But it won't wash.

Mine has chocolate buttons for breakfast!

Children who aren't allowed chocolate and sweet sugary food go to parties when they are six, and take whole trays of cupcakes under the table to eat in shameful glee. I have seen it happen, it happened at ds1's 5th birthday - the poor child had to be persuaded to put the tray back and just load her plate instead, and assured that it would not be 'all gone, with none left for her'.

None of the other children took a great deal of interest in the food - after all, there was a bouncy castle

DaddyJ - your opinion astonishes me.

I think chocolate and sweeties should be an integral part of childhood.

Like most of the people on this thread I think demonising any food is wrong.

This whole chocolate is addictive opinion is hooey. My children don't prowl around the kitchen, climbing into cupboards for their next 'fix'. They don't beg for it and get sweats and shakes when they don't eat it. In fact I don't know anyone who does!

I feel sorry for your children.

Totally anecdotal, but I was not allowed sugar as a child (hard-core hippy parents) very very little processed food and so on. And I have to be VERY careful with sugar now, can be a bit bingey if not careful. My dd have always been allowed sweets in a fairly controlled but not obsessive way, and will hand back half finished sweets to me, which sit on the shelf and get forgotten about. Which makes me very very happy.

Daddy J - you appear to be confusing me with someone who represents the food industry? I can assure you I do not, and my viewpoint comes from that of having a BSc in Nutrition. I neither condone specific brands, nor demonise them. In the context of a balanced diet eating some chocolate, or indeed the odd happy meal in the course of a lifetime will not be harmful, and in terms of possibly giving energy where no better solution presented itself (such as in my previous post) also proove beneficial in terms of lifting the mood in order to cope with the circumstances you may find yourself in.
On a cold day you may have as much nutritional benefit from a salad as from soup, but have your mood lifted more by the soup being a hot meal.
On a hot day I may crave a cool lenonade, in response to both my thirst and to the cultural influence placed on said drink- this is in no way addiction, and I feel you are being alarmist in your overly simplified conclusion.

'I feel sorry for your children'

Snort

I really have enjoyed the urgent sense of melodrama on this thread!
And we are only talking about a fairly useless substance..

The little girl is going to be fine,
her childhood is unlikely to be blighted by chocolate deprivation
despite some of the strangely hysterical predictions made on here.

It has been fun debating!

Daddy J - see ya, wouldnt want to be ya....

waddle off, you cadbury addict

Why should chocolates and sweets be an integral part of childhood? I don't get that.

I guess kids tend to eat like thier parents. We don't have chocolates, sweets and cakes in the house. We have a few biscuits (dh likes them). I don't buy them because they have no nutritional value. I do buy plenty of junk like processed meats etc that do actually have some actual food in them but why sweets? What is the point?

Obesity and diabetes is the biggest health epidemic facing the western world. Why not take that seriously?

in all honesty I would rather my child had a small bag of chocolate buttons than processed meat products.

boak.

Why?

maybe because chocolate buttons aren't carcinogenic?