Teaching Good Eating Habits

If you're making sweets a heavy "no-no" for her, my guess, based on my own life history, is that she's craving sweets more and enjoying them less. What finally worked for me was to give myself complete, joyful permission to enjoy sweets, and making even one piece of chocolate, one slice of pie, a celebration. I learned to give my complete attention to every bite, every lick, every swallow. By the time I finished 1/4 of a chocolate bar, I knew I had eaten chocolate, by golly!

Then I would attend to something else I liked to do. I also gradually learned that the "necessaries" of life, like housework, can be a source of amazing satisfaction when done attentively and with love.

I did not learn this as a child. Work was sheer, joyless drudgery for my mother. She complained about it constantly, and laid as much housework and odd jobs as she could on me and my younger sisters. I grew up believing work was for hating. And food was for self-denial. What a waste of life, and loss of potential happiness.

But I met an extraordinary young man who knew the joy of service when I was in my 20's, and his example was a revelation. A group of friends was meeting at his house, and when we arrived, he was finishing up dinner dishes. And he was simply radiant with love. I have been a much happier, and less needy, person since seeing how transformative it is to give total attention to my daily activities. Including eating!

I know this stuff can't really be taught, but I hope you can capture something in here that gives you a new handle on how to help your daughter.

How much do you restrict it? My mom used to think sugar made me hyper so took it all away. She also didn't have a lot of fruits in the house either. She would go on and on about how I craved sugar and she was right I was addicted. I can take or leave sweets now because I can have them when I want, when I couldn't have them at all it was all I wanted.

What I am saying is we want what we can't have. Not sure if that is the case here though.

How about only offering cake, ice cream, cookies or pie once or twice a week and then fruit desserts the other days?

Like fruit salad, mixed berries (my personal fav), watermelon? Or plain yogurt with a some berries and a teaspoon of brown sugar as dessert? Create other alternatives.

Try having no sweets in the house for 2 weeks. It will start to break the craving the sugar cycle.

As for her keeping on asking, obiously someone is caving in at some point, my kids will ask for seconds on dessert and the answer is no. They don't ask a 3rd or 4th time ... Because the answer is still no. Once NO is said. It stays NO all the time. Someone has said "ok just this once" after saying no before.

You could also try since she is old enough "if you ask again, not only will you not get seconds tonight, you will have no dessert tomorrow"

Another option that always works with my kids when they ask for more dessert after having the first serving and complain about still being hungry: If you are still hungry you can have the rest of the broccoli or green beans ... or whatever vegetable we had for dinner" I've found that if they are genuinely hungry - they say ok. If they aren't hungry, they say no thanks.

I have to add that I personally disagree with rewarding good food with a treat. I think it's ok to say "if you eat a good dinner, you can have dessert", if you don't, no dessert.

maybe wait for desert at night and make sure she has her fill at dinner this way if she has a little piece of sweets its enough for her, OR cut out sweets totally and get healthy sweets like fruit smoothies or all natural sherbert or make homemade juice pops

I think your on the right track with pushing the fruits and veggies, as that's one of the problems with sweets--they shouldn't replace healthy options. I'd suggest earning sweets: eat three carrot sticks and two apple slices and then you can have a treat. Or protein and dairy would be an even better choice, Or add a glass of water or milk first.

Second I would suggest giving out regular sweets, I choose after lunch dessert during summer and early dinner treats. But the key is to make those dessert options YOUR choice. There are TONS of healthy treats to make and offer that as long as like you said she's active, you wouldn't need to worry about. Also I might suggest that instead of only cakes and pies being considered dessert, add fruit parfaits, and watermelon slices, or jello or peanut butter balls. I'm just suggesting that rather that worrying about limiting and portion control, you focus on the quality of food she's eating: 3 slices of watermelon after a healthy meal?--have four.

Good luck with this. Kid's nutrition is something we stress out about so much, huh? Just remember to enjoy the journey, they're young for such a short time.

If you look around, you'll see a lot of kids grew up without self control or self denial. Your daughter is in the instant gratification generation. At 10 its also an obedience situation. If you told her she couldn't go out with her friends and show kept asking an whining.

I am over weight. Its from over eating and under exercising. If you don't help your daughter she will be one of the obese generation and die earlier than she hould have to because of the maladies that come with being over weight.

I wish you luck. My mom would limit us kids to what a normal size desert would be. (When we really bugged her, my dad would back her up.) I used that as my standard. When I got enough exercise it was enough to keep my weight in check. When I got used to the good life and didn't exercise, I gained weight. In my Army days I would run in formation in combat boots and fatigues for three miles. The CG's requirement was for us to be able to do run 3 miles in 18 minutes or less. And that's what we did.

Good luck to you and yours.

At 10 it isn't left over baby fat. It is from the empty calories in the sweets. My daughter loves sweets too just like me but her body retains the fat and mine doesn't. I have to stay on her about the junk food, but I use her teeth as the issue and not her weight. Stick to your word and don't back down and let her know that one serving of desert is all she will get and that is it. Don't make it about her tummy, make it about how she gets too hyper after having sweets and that is not good for her health.

Also I just heard about a man that had a medical disorder and he had to have maple syrup on everything. He had for lack of a better term a hyper sweet tooth.

I don't think there is a "too young" when it comes to offering or encouraging healthy choices. I have 2 boys, 2 1/2 and almost 5, and they know the difference between good and healthy and unhealthy because I make sure that I educate them. They also know that mom works out to stay healthy and eats healthy as well. I think modeling is huge when it comes to this and that it all starts with us. Good for you for looking out for her best interest, as I see way too many overweight children with very poor eating habits and it is very sad because ultimately, it is the parent's choices that made them that way.

Please don't let this become a power struggle.
But you ARE the mom and you DO set the limits, no matter how much your child begs.
Only offer dessert a few times a week.
If you bake, bake only what you want the family to eat that day.
If you buy pre-made desserts, get the single or "serving for two" portions.
Don't keep prepackaged cookies, treats, donuts, ice cream bars, etc. in the house AT ALL. She can't eat it if it's not there!
So what if she gets upset? My daughter (15) gets upset all the time. Being a good mom means saying no a lot, it's the part of parenting they don't tell you about, and it sucks :(

You're not at all asking too much. We are at a time now where we are to teach our children to be health concious especially because of some of the ingredients in foods which can later cause major health problems.
I can see that your daugher needs encouragement. She has a good apetite and sweets and candies are 'colorful' foods. Additionally they are habit forming. She needs to be reminded of the harm that these foods cause, but try not to do it in a way to get her too annoyed since that may have negative implications. You need to find some motivating tactics, like a little reward for doing it right- whatever works for the both of you. Also, you could find healthy ways in satisfying her sweet tooth. Not only can you give her fruits but you could make cakes with less sugar, fruit smoothies which taste really great, snack bars where you could use honey instead of sugar, or molasses even, homemade popsicles, etc. the list goes on, you just have to be created. if you don't know how, there should be sites online to help you, but don't give up, you're doing a great job, hang in there...