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Examination of different strategies to encourage candy moderation in kids. Is it even possible in our sugar-filled society?
Candy, candy candy.
It seems like candy is everywhere all the time anymore – it doesn’t seem to matter the time of year!
Our culture is completely saturated with candy and sweets. You simply cannot get away from it.
Every checkout line has a big candy assortment to choose from…even office supply and health food stores!
This is a strong indication that impulse buying of sweet snacks is very popular.
It probably comes as no surprise that most children eat candy every single day.
Sadly, this behavior can become quickly ingrained as a habit.
This is due to candy often being used as a reward in many classrooms or by parents themselves for good behavior or academic performance. This includes private schools too!
It may also be used as a distraction or even a bribe of sorts when traveling on airplanes or in other situations where children need to sit still for long periods of time.
There is no doubt that one of the most difficult things to teach children is moderation when it comes to their relationship with sweets!
An occasional piece of candy is fine – eating it as a habit is most definitely not.
Teaching Moderation with Candy
My policy in our house is simply to not buy candy.
You won’t find a candy dish anywhere at any time of year. Nor are there any bags of candy tucked here or there in the pantry for sneaking a piece on stressful days.
I do occasionally have small organic lollipops for my kids as a treat in the car when picking them up from school. These do not contain high fructose corn syrup!
Another adult giving my kids candy without asking me is another thing entirely, however.
How rude is that?
Some days, don’t you just want to throw up your hands and lock your kids away or move to a closed community and live with only like-minded folks to get away from the sugar madness?
But, that doesn’t seem wise either.
Raising kids in a candy-free bubble seems a surefire recipe for rebellion and a child who has no control over their sugar impulses.
The hard road is to continue to model moderation for them and let them have a bit of candy now and again and talk to them about how overindulging will lead to weight problems and worse in the years ahead.
As a Mom who has been struggling to teach my kids the dangers of candy without being an ogre about it for many years, I wanted to pass along the story of how each of my children reacted to their school Easter Egg Hunt last week.
Of course, any Easter Egg Hunt is going to be loaded with candy and it is a good opportunity to teach children moderation and how to enjoy an activity without going overboard.
My oldest son ate absolutely no candy at all. He had no interest in having any and the pieces he got, he either gave away or tossed in the trash.
My middle child, who is three years younger, ate two pieces of candy and then dumped the rest in the trash.
My youngest child, three years younger than the middle child, ate a bunch of the candy at school and brought the rest of the candy home where she promptly dumped it in the trash after asking if she could keep two special pieces (which I said “yes” to).
It is important to note that my oldest child would have eaten a ton of candy when he was the age of my youngest child.
But, over the years, he has learned moderation more and more and now doesn’t want any most of the time.
My middle child had a really hard time saying no to candy if it was offered at school or a party just a couple of years ago.
Now, he is exercising great restraint and is demonstrating excellent moderation skills. I feel sure my youngest will be the same within a few years.
I guess the bottom line of this story is that it takes kids years to learn moderation in their candy habits especially when it is everywhere and most of their friends are pretty much eating it constantly so there is continuous temptation.
Teaching kids moderation with candy is clearly harder today than it used to be!
Learning to say no to candy is a process and just because a younger child has trouble with moderation today doesn’t mean this will be the case later.
Stay on it, Moms and Dads!
Don’t give up as I’ve seen others do and just let your kids go wild with the sweets because it’s just too hard to stay on the moderation path 24/7.
Your efforts will bear fruit later even if you are not necessarily seeing much progress today.
My Kids Are Adults Now … What’s the Result?
The above article was written nearly 15 years ago when my children were all still young.
Today, they are all adults living on their own and making their own food decisions.
How did my efforts at raising them without any candy in the house and organic candy as an occasional treat only work out?
I am happy to report that all three rarely eat candy or chocolate of any kind. Yay!
They seem to all have avoided the addictive behavior common in our sugar-saturated society.
When I ask them about candy when they were growing up, they are glad I didn’t have a lot of candy around and don’t feel like their upbringing was deprived in any way.
When I do see them eat candy, it is a brand with safe ingredients from the health food store.
For example, these white chocolate nut butter cups are preferred by my oldest on occasion after a particularly exhausting adult soccer game (otherwise, I never see him eat any type of candy).
I don’t think I’m being naive with them hiding it from me. I don’t find any suspicious candy wrappers anywhere including their cars. 😂
Most telling, they don’t show any signs of the insulin spike/sugar crash behavior so indicative of regular candy consumption.
Given that all three are very different personalities, I would say that the balanced strategy of not raising them in a bubble and only using healthier brands of candy as an occasional treat seemed to work out quite well.
At least for now …. fingers crossed!!
Even at my sons preschool they give candies as a reward for good behavior. I HATE that! I said my 4 year old will not have candy! I sent pretty little decorated bags with dehydrated fruits for him to have when the other kids are given candy. I hope I’m not causing him problems, bu I feel likea preschooler is too young to know how to exercise moderation, although we do talk through these things and I let him have opportunities to try cake, etc at birthday parties.
Also, my son gets cold sores in his mouth when he has too much sugar, even natural sugar. This is very painful for him and then his appetite is poor for the next week, so that’s why I’m even more militant about him not having candy.
Something neat happened. This week his preschool is having an Easter Egg Hunt. His teachers sent home a note asking that each parent send 15 egg with their child’s name on them. The parents are supposed to fill the eggs with what they would like their child to eat. I am really grateful to the teachers for their creativity in accomodating our family’s desire for healthy eating. I plan to fill his eggs with raisins and home dehydrated fruit, “dough balls” made with carob, honey, coconut, nut, and coconut oil. Probably some scripture verses an I love you note and stickers and other prizes too.
I think it’s so important that health conscious parents like us take an active role to influence our schools and community.
My kids are doing better but we are not near the point where your’s are! We are getting closer one step at a time. My husband has been a big time junk food eater. He has come so far from where he was. Side question if I may…I have an almost 7 month old who is not doing well with adjusting to foods. I tried giving her homemade applesauce that was about 50% applesauce and 50% water. I gave her mostly liquid with a tad bit of apple. She just keeps coughing on it and trying to spit it out. She LOVES egg yolk. Should I be concerned about her not getting enough food or is nursing, egg yolk, and just keep trying the baby type of food okay? At what point does it become a concern? Thank you!
Thank you! I will poke around more on Sarah’s website.
My 14 month old just finally accepted food for the first time last month. We offered food first at 5.5 months, and tried often even though she never took to it- until 13 months. Finally! Up until 13 months she was exclusively breast fed and completely healthy and growing well. You don’t need to worry about your baby getting enough, as long as you nurse her often. It’s great that she loves egg yolk!
What does your family do for Easter so there isn’t a huge influx of candy? (if you don’t mind me asking)
We fill our Easter celebration with some great family traditions and avoid all the candy parties. We explain the real meaning of Easter and why we choose to celebrate the way we do. The kids are always happy to join us. We have five boys, ages 2 to 10.
Here in Sweden we used to have a tradition that we only ate candy on Saturdays. Usually that’s what I got. But obviously nowadays things have changed even here. I have a 5 year old who I have noticed reaaaally gets affected by sugar so we try to avoid giving him any at all. I used to do the Saturday treat thing with him where he got something tiny on a Saturday. We then changed this and bought 86% chocolate. I would give him a tiny piece each day after his breakfast which was so much better and he thought it was better because he got “candy” everyday. But even that only happens occasionally now. I do try to teach him that even if his friends eat a lot of candy that he shouldn’t and he does listen, even though of course he’ll eat some if offered by someone else.
Oh and by the way, I completely agree about how rude it is to offer a child candy without checking with you first! I hate that! I had an experience a couple of years ago where one of my son’s primary teachers at church in England was giving out those huge pixie stick things and asked me if he could have one in front of him and in front of all the other kids!! What was I supposed to say!? That night he may as well have been on speed! It was so scary to watch. He couldn’t sleep and just lay in my arms staring… it was awful! I can proudly say though that my son rarely gets sick and is very healthy and strong, so it’s nice to know that despite all my many weaknesses I’m doing something right.
Yes, sugar makes you drunk in a way like alcohol does. I wish some preachers would take up that subject instead of harping on alcohol all the time .. what about all the teetotalers in the congregation who are addicted to sugar? Very similar thing physiologically speaking. I just have to laugh to myself when I hear one of those sermons.
We did 3 “no added sugar days” with my 7 years old. When to the store an read the labels so we buy thing only without added sugar. While we were there, he realized how hard to find food with no added sugar. He likes sweets but aware of the danger of it. He gets a little chocolates after lunch, if he eats enough.
My motto is to teach the kids as soon as you can about the healthy choices. They are open and willing to learn!
I would also add that it is REALLY hard if kids go to school as the candy is EVERYWHERE and the kids are eating it all the time.
Children eating well at home is the main thing. You can’t shield them from every single sugar incident as they are growing up and shouldn’t try as these are good teaching opportunities. If they are healthy and feel great and then notice how eating sugar makes them feel rotten, they will learn to simply avoid it. When puberty hits, they will also notice how the kids who eat a lot of sugar have weight and skin issues too which they would want to avoid.
It’s my opinion that adults should stay away from comparing any particular food consumption to phyisical issues with peers. The goal is to teach them how to truly love and care for their own bodies. Many young people have weight and skin issues with no obvious connection to their diet yet (when I was in middle school it was the thin glowing soccer playing girls who had the wickedest candy stash). I am a teacher at early childhood program that serves only properly prepared traditional foods and I have been sad to notice that the children who come from families who cook this way at home are the most likely to say things like, “You can only play with me if you don’t eat candy because people who eat candy are gross!” or “I don’t like you because you are fat”. These are direct quotes and no these children’s families are all lovely and kind and would never say things like this directly about people but the idea seeps in none the less.
Yes, this. Connect eating habits with health, not weight. Don’t give children a reason to look down on peers who are overweight or even just chubby. Not every kid is naturally a string bean.
We did a sugar fast together and talked about how one of the goals was to strengthen our immune system. While we were on it, the stomach flu went around and for the first time ever, only 1 of my kids got it. This remains a powerful incentive to them.
Also, a neighbor gave them jellybeans recently and we saved them for a special occasion. My 4 yo said that they gave him a stomachache and my oldest hardly ate any. A few years ago they would have all eaten them right up on the spot without a complaint. I think that when sugar is taken out of the diet, they’re given the chance to notice how bad it truly makes them feel when they eat it.
I find the example of your children to be so inspiring! Even moderate amounts of sugar soaked candy can do great harm to so many of the systems to the body, and that is magnified in children, who are still developing.
We knew a little boy who did not like to try new foods. His parents got him to try all kinds of real , traditional foods, but they never introduced him to candy. The boy just graduated with a perfect GPA from a major university. He never missed a single class in his entire academic life. He has perfect teeth, and is so healthy that he has almost never seen a doctor, after his parents discontinued the worthless “well baby visits” so beloved by pediatricians and vaccine companies. Hi is tall, powerful, charming, friendly, and a very nice young man. He has yet to taste a piece of candy. Of course, many other factors played a part in how he turned out, but his parents are firm believers that the lack of candy and sugary foods was a very important component.
We try to really limit the amount of candy our kids have. Sometimes it’s harder than others. My husband eats a ton of it; I refuse to buy any. We talk to our oldest (almost 7) about moderation and how important it is. For halloween and easter, we’ll keep a few pieces out and put the rest in the freezer. The little bit we have usually lasts all year long, with my husband eating the bulk. One thing that has helped me drastically cut my candy consumption is to only buy organic chocolate–it’s pricey, so one small bar (Dagoba) usually lasts a week or more in my desk at work, so I end up eating less.