What to Tell Your Kids About Junk Food

You want the best for your child and when you are constantly seeing messages of the poor health of Americans, how bad sugar is for you, and how much emphasis is put on being overweight monitoring your child’s junk food intake is just natural. Before you read on I do want to say that this post is not meant to shame mothers for doing this- it’s purpose is just to educate about the research available and help you make informed decisions.

Studies have shown that parental control of kids food intake actually increases their enthusiasm for and intake of those restricted foods. Just like any diet or form of restriction, food policing from a parental figure disrupts the body’s greatest tool to nourish itself: hunger and fullness signals. There is something primal happening when the person that takes care of you is restricting your foods. It conflicts with your innate system of survival and confuses those signals. Restriction and food control from a parental figure also complicates kids’ feelings around food. Words like good and bad in relation to food blur the lines between self worth and nourishment.

I think people have a hard time understanding that letting your kids have junk food is actually more helpful than forbidding certain foods. I don’t blame you, it seems pretty counter intuitive. Think about it in terms of ‘bad words’. You tell your kids not to say a word but that just makes them want to say it more.

I see the differences in kids’ behavior a lot in my cooking classes. The kids that mention they never get sweets at home are inevitably overly excited to be given a chance to eat them. Their eyes light up and they eat the sweets without regard to how hungry or full they are and without paying attention to how that food is making them feel because who knows when the next time will be that they are allowed to eat that. I don’t blame them. Those foods are delicious and I would take my chance at eating them too.

This isn’t just anecdotal evidence either. There is good research to back this claim up. For example, girls that have been deprived of palatable snacks showed high incidences of eating when not hungry. In contrast, girls that were allowed access to all kinds of snacks had lower incidences of eating when not hungry. They were able to listen to what their bodies were telling them more effectively.

Sure, if your kids are used to being told no all the time or being restricted from junk food there will probably be a period of time when they overindulge when not being policed. But this strategy isn’t just for today or a few weeks- it’s for a lifetime. A lifetime that your child can feel relaxed around cookies and cake and don’t fear that allowing themselves a small piece of chocolate means they have been ‘bad’ or won’t be able to stop.

There, of course, is another side to this story. Don’t just think that the dietitian is telling you to let meals and snacks be a free for all. High calorie/low nutrient foods should be included into scheduled meal and snack times that also include a variety of nutritionally dense foods. These foods should be approached neutrally; there are no ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods. Try calling it ‘play food’ or ‘fun food’ instead of junk food to take away the stigma.

These fun foods may have little nutritional value but still provide nourishment in other ways. An example of this for me is ice cream. Growing up my family and I were all ice cream lovers. Now I am able to enjoy a bowl almost nightly but that wasn’t always the case. I used to not even store it in the house because I didn’t think I could be trusted around it. Through my own work I’ve come to realize that this restrictive thinking was the issue, not my own willpower or the ice cream. I’ve also realized now that ice cream provides me with more than calories- it reminds me of my family. It reminds me of times spent over vacation going to the dairy farm in Michigan to get a cone or the birthdays and holidays that always had ice cream at them, even the holidays that traditionally ice cream isn’t served like Thanksgiving- that’s how much we love it. The value of these play foods is in the enjoyment, satisfaction, and fun.