My Child Eats Too Much Sugar: Learn About the Dessert Pendulum Effect
Let me get straight to the point: I’m a big advocate of normalizing sugar for kids.
What do I mean by this exactly?
To put it plainly, sugar and all things sweets are highly demonized in our culture today, to the point that parents are stressing about how to approach desserts with their children.
I’ve had countless families land in my office over the years for this very issue: There’s a power struggle between kids and caregivers over sugar, and the battles can feel out-of-control. You might feel worried about your child eating too much sugar, while your kids might seem like they can’t get enough of it.
So what’s the cure for the sugar scaries and to end the battles around sweets?
The answer might surprise you. But let me tell you: the proof is in the pudding, but these are the strategies that I’ve put to work for the families needing help making peace with sugar in their home.
One of the first and most important steps is to legalize sugar in your home. To actually give your kids repeated and recurring opportunities to have all the treats and sweets that you may’ve been restricting or too tightly controlling.
You see, sometimes as parents, we operate under the premise that things can be managed and controlled in our own homes. And food is no different. Because there’s so much fear-mongering around sugar, parents often worry about having it in their homes.
As a result, kids might have limited access to things like candy, cookies, ice cream, etc. While this may look like a GOOD thing (and is certainly done with the best of intentions), what parents tend to find is that their kids seem to become obsessed with all things sugar. In situations where sugar is available, like around the holidays or on a special occasion, kids might seem to go out of control with it.
So what gives?
Is limiting or controlling a child’s sweets intake a solution to the sugar ordeal?
Not really.
In fact, too tightly controlling sweets with your kids can actually create far more problems than if you just allowed the sugar to begin with.
Because the truth is, we live in a world where sugar exists. It doesn’t just exist, it ABOUNDS. It’s everywhere - there’s no shortage of it. So while controlling your child’s sugar intake in your own home might feel like a solution, it’s only focused on the short-term.
It doesn’t set your child up for successfully learning how to manage sugar and sweets in the real world.
Because one day, your kids will go from your home and venture into the real world without your constant guidance and support. And if they haven’t learned how to self-regulate sweets at home, they’re going to struggle managing it in the real world.
For starters, when talking about kids and sweets, it’s important to think about the big picture. The strategies I suggest are about helping your child develop a positive relationship with all foods and to learn how to self-regulate all foods, including sweets and all things sugar.
Offering and allowing a variety of sweets in your home alongside meals and snacks for your kids is a great way to start legalizing sugar in your home, to support your children in learning how to have an emotionally neutral relationship with food and to self-regulate what feels best in their bodies.
This approach has been shown to help kids:
Learn how to self-regulate their intake of all foods, including sweets
Decrease risk of disordered eating
Prevent obsessiveness and preoccupation around desserts
Build a positive relationship with all foods
Increase self-confidence
But I know this can be easier said than done.
(You can read more about my approach here: “I'm a Dietitian and This is Why I Let My Kids Eat Candy For Breakfast”)
Child Eating Too Much Sugar?
Even with the promising benefits of liberalizing sugar in your home and for your kids, you might still have some worries or concerns about this approach.
One of the most common pushbacks I get from parents about allowing sweets with meals or legalizing sugar in the home is, “What if my child eats too much sugar?”, or, “What if they only eat the dessert portion of their meal and nothing else?”. The idea of a child eating sugar alone can terrify any parent, and again, it’s rooted in many of the lies we've come to believe about food, how our kids eat, and how food might affect their health.
The reality is this: If you’re allowing your kids to eat sweets in a more liberalized manner, or if you're letting your kids have desserts with their meals instead of sparingly or only after eating dinner, there’s a good chance they’ll be alllllllll about the sweet foods for awhile.
In fact, I tell parents to expect it.
If a child’s had limited exposure or access to sweets, and then sweets are allowed in the context of a positive structured eating environment (read: alongside their meals and snacks), they’re likely to be more preoccupied with those foods for some time.
This is expected behavior for a child who hasn’t had enough access to eating sweets. But the good news is that your child won’t stay here.
Think about it like a pendulum.
The Dessert Pendulum Effect
A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot point so it can swing freely from side to side. Think of an old school grandfather clock, where the ticker swings in the box as the time ticks on.
Now imagine if you pulled a pendulum far to one side - as far as you could pull it. Then imagine releasing the pendulum from that point. What’s gonna happen?
If you guessed the pendulum will swing far to the other side, you’re absolutely RIGHT. In fact, it will swing just as far to the other side because of how far you had pulled it to one side. Inevitability, the pendulum will swing back and forth for a while before it will finally settle back into the middle position.
So what does this have to do with kids eating desserts?
Well, think about it like this:
When kids haven’t had regular access to sweets and then are allowed to have desserts with meals, it’s like pulling them to one far side of a pendulum and then releasing it to swing to the other side.
In other words, kids who haven’t had normalized experiences with eating desserts, such as with meals and snacks, and who aren’t allowed to eat desserts just because (not due to any holiday or special occasion), are more likely to be really excited about eating desserts when you start introducing it to the picture.
If your kids are now getting access to desserts after previously being restricted, they tend to go through a “honeymoon” phase, where they’re ALL about eating desserts and prefer these foods over other foods they would normally eat.
This is the dessert pendulum effect, where kids swing to the other side of eating desserts after a period of time where access to sweets was limited.
So what might this look like?
When you actively start normalizing desserts in your home and legalizing sugar for your kids, you might notice the following in the beginning of your family’s journey:
Your kids get excited about having sweets
The dessert or sweet portion of the meal is eaten first
The dessert or sweet portion of the meal is the only thing eaten
Your kids may ask when they get to have desserts again
Kids may show less interest in eating other foods
These behaviors are NORMAL and actually expected when you normalize desserts in your home. And when I say normalize, I mean, allowing regular access to desserts and sweet foods in the form of meals and snacks in your home.
If desserts were previously off limits or only allowed sparingly, this may be a factor that can influence the dessert pendulum effect.
Other factors that might influence the pendulum swing:
Your child was previously restricted from sugar
Your child was not permitted to eat dessert unless after a meal, if veggies were eaten, etc.
Your child only had access to desserts on special occasions and/or holidays
Your child wasn’t given opportunities to learn how to self-regulate their sugar intake
So if one or more of these factors are involved, there’s a good chance you may notice your child taking a ride on the pendulum swing when you begin normalizing sugar in your home.
This can be challenging for parents.
Many parents worry about their child’s increased intake in sugar. Will it be bad for their health? Will they always only want to eat the dessert part of their meal? Will the only show interest in eating dessert foods and nothing else?
Here’s where it’s crucial to be mindful of the pendulum pattern. Yes, your child may swing far to the other side of the spectrum when you start allowing sweets again, but with consistency in these feeding approaches, your child will eventually even out in the neutral zone again.
Meaning, your child may go through a phase of being really excited about eating dessert and only interested in eating sweets, but this is temporary. Consistency is key though to helping your child develop a more emotionally neutral relationship with desserts compared to other foods. They may need repeated opportunities to eat desserts and other sweets that may have been off-limits before. They also need you to trust them to eat and to learn how to self-regulate the foods you provide and make available for them.
Within this context, the pendulum swing will gradually subside, and kids will naturally move into a more neutral eating zone.
Here are some signs that your child is coming out of the dessert pendulum swing and into a more emotionally neutral relationship with desserts:
Your kids doesn’t always eat the dessert portion of their meal first
Your kids begin to leave behind portions of their dessert
Your kids show interest in eating other foods outside of dessert
Your child is just as eager and excited to eat other foods as they are desserts
Your child doesn’t seem worried or anxious about whether or not dessert will be available at meals
These are signs of progress that come as you stay consistent in your approach with offering sweets regularly and keeping desserts available in your home.
Offering Your Child Structure and Support With Sugar
To help your children normalizing their experiences with eating desserts and to support their healthy relationship with all foods, keep these tips in mind:
Allow desserts alongside meals and snacks:
Children still do need structure and support around food, and one of the best ways to offer this to them is to provide regular meals and snacks throughout the day.
Including desserts and sweets within the context of their meals and snacks is one of the most powerful ways to help normalize desserts and to keep sweets from being up on a pedestal. When you present desserts alongside other foods they’re used to seeing, this communicates the message that one food isn’t emotionally better than another.
This helps takes dessert off the pedestal so your kids can effectively learn how to eat based on their internal regulators and not purely on emotions.
When desserts are only allowed after meals or permitted when a child eats so much of their dinner, this creates an emotional charge around desserts. Without rigid rules around desserts, kids can better self-regulate AND feel less obsessive about getting to dessert.
Many parents find that mealtimes are less of a battleground when desserts are offered alongside meals and kids are trusted to eat what they need from the foods provided.
If you need more support implementing this in your home, be sure to check out this post here: “7 Practical Reasons Why To Offer Your Kids Dessert With Dinner”
2. Don’t micromanage your child’s food choices:
Parents provide, child decides, If child only eats dessert portion of food, that is okay. Give them permission to eat from the foods you’ve provided without rules, regulations or stipulations. Remember, some kids may go for eating the dessert portion of their food first and hardly touch any of the other foods on their plates.
That is OKAY.
If you try to micromanage their intake and the order in which they eat their food, you’re crossing out of your lane and trying to do your child’s eating job for them. This is where mishaps can happen at mealtimes, which can create a trigger for power struggles.
The single most important factor to helping your kids build a healthy relationship with food is TRUST. You need to trust them to do their part with eating so they can learn what foods feel best in THEIR bodies.
And just like described with the pendulum dessert effect, your child may eat the dessert part of the meal for some time before moving toward a more neutral zone with sweets.
This can’t happen if someone is micromanaging what they eat. And PSA: It’s all going in the same place anyway, so the order in which they eat their food doesn’t really matter.
What really matters is your children seeing that you trust them do their parts with eating. This will help them trust themselves and feel confident in self-regulating what they need to eat.
3. Don’t categorize desserts:
It’s common practice to separate out sweets and desserts into their own category, but how might this impact our kiddos? Labels around desserts can make them feel more mysterious for our kids. I mean, put yourself in their shoes.
Wouldn’t you want to eat something labeled as a “fun food” or a “treat”? Wouldn’t you wonder why certain foods are only allowed sometimes, but other things, like chicken and broccoli are always allowed? And remember, kids are literal thinkers.
So when they hear things like, “Too much junk food is bad for you”, they can begin to believe they are inherently BAD for eating things labeled as “junk.” “Treats” can imply kids need to earn certain foods, which can put them up on a pedestal and give them much more power over your kids than they should have. At the end of the day, food is just food.
And guess what?
Desserts are food, too. And if we want to help our kiddos build a healthy relationship with all foods, it’s important to look at our language around it.
Categorizing all sweet foods with labels puts them in their own box, which makes it harder for kids to normalize dessert foods with other foods. This also makes dessert into a MUCH bigger deal than it actually is.
What’s an easy solution to normalize desserts for kids and support them in building a healthy relationship with all foods? Call food for what it is. Like, by its actual name. Lollipops. Cookies. Ice Cream. Gummy Bears. Etc.
Without any labels that imply hidden agendas. This draws out the emotional charge that’s so easily attached to sweet foods. In this way, you give your kiddos the opportunity to learn how to eat all foods based on their internal self-regulators, not external rules or influences.
For more help on this, check out this blog: “Child Only Wants to Eat Sweets? Here are 11 Simple Ways to Respond”
4. Give your child chances to learn how to self-regulate:
The only way kids can learn how to self-regulate their sugar intake is by having experiences that allow them to do so.
Meaning, your kids need to experiment, to have some trial and error with sugar and desserts to discover what foods and amounts feel good in their bodies and what doesn’t feel good.
If we are always limiting sweets and portions of desserts, kids may not have these opportunities. I like to share this story about one of my daughters during Halloween.
After a night of trick-or-treating, we let our kids eat as much candy as they want from their Halloween stash at the table, along with a glass of cold milk. At the time, my daughter was tearing through her candy stash and eating so much candy, I knew she was going to get sick.
But I didn’t say anything or try to stop her. I knew I needed to let her have the experience for herself to figure out what felt best in her body.
Sure enough, she did get sick, and instead of pointing at the figure or saying, “I told you so!”, I just sat with her and approached it from a place of curiosity.
She told me that her tummy didn’t feel good from eating so much candy, and she wouldn’t have been able to learn this had she not experienced it firsthand. If I would’ve intervened, she would likely have had more of a pull toward eating all her candy.
Needless to say, she’s never gotten sick from eating too much candy (or any other dessert) since. So can a child throw up from eating too much sugar as they learn to self regulate? Yes, it is possible, but it doesn’t mean they’re not capable of regulating - they need the opportunities to learn.
Now, I’m not proposing that you just let your kids eat as much dessert they want whenever they want to figure this all out on their own. I’m a huge proponent of offering desserts with meals and snacks as a primary method of creating a supportive eating environment for your kids.
I do think it’s important to also incorporate strategic times where you kids have more of a say over how much of the dessert they want to eat. For example, maybe you can occasionally put out a plate of cookies for a snack alongside milk and let your kids decide how many cookies they want to eat.
Or maybe you have a snack time where you let them pick out how much candy they want to eat alongside the milk and sliced fruit you’ve served for a snack. You’re still incorporating the dessert at a snack time, but there is more leniency with the portion size.
This can help your kids learn how to self-regulate an amount of sugar that feels best in their bodies. Through this process, it’s important to refrain from micromanaging or telling them things like, “Your tummy is going to hurt if you eat too much!”.
Better than anything you can say is for them to experience it firsthand and to learn what feels best in their own bodies.
Can I trust my child to self-regulate?
A side effect of the desert pendulum is parents who are worried about their children primarily gravitating toward sweets. Can you trust your children to self-regulate their sugar intake if it’s something they’ve previously been restricted and/or limited from? What happens if a child eats too much sugar?
Remember that kids are innately programmed to self-regulate their food intake and can do this with all foods, including desserts and sweets. Even if your child is experiencing a dessert pendulum swing, this will normalize with a strategic approach to offering a variety of foods consistently at meals and snacks.
Research has found that restrictive feeding overrides children’s internal satiety signals and increases desire for forbidden foods. So when desserts or sugar-based foods are forbidden, they become more desirable for children, making it harder to self-regulate when they do have the chance to eat them.
This is where offering repeated chances to eat these foods is key, so that they’re no longer forbidden. The other key aspect is trusting your children to eat and learn how to self-regulate their sugar intake.
If fear is holding you back from fully trusting your child to eat, take a step back to get curious about where that fear comes from or what might be triggering it.
Ultimately, the more you can trust your kids to do their part with eating and focus on doing your part with feeding, the more you’ll be able to support your children in building a healthy relationship with all foods. Kids eat and grow best when we don’t project our own fears and insecurities on our kids, especially around their food and how they eat.
For more support with this, check out this blog here: “How to Trust Your Kids With Sweets When You're Uncomfortable With Sugar”
Now I’d love to hear from you! What are your concerns about your child eating too much sugar? Let me know how I can support you in the comments below!