Sugar Kids: Should Children in Larger Bodies Be Limited From Sweets?
It’s a situation I’ve heard come up over and over again in the work I do.
Parents of a child in a larger body are unsure how to handle desserts and sweets. They may have received some well-meaning advice from a pediatrician or professional about how to best “manage” their child’s weight. Sadly, a common response to a child being in a larger body is to limit their intake of sugar, including all things desserts and sweets.
Many families land in my office for this particular reason:
“Our doctor just suggested we stop keeping anything sugar in the house but this doesn’t seem to be helping.”
Or,
“We’re trying to keep her away from sugar to help her lose some weight, but she just seems more obsessed with it.”
On the surface, this may seem like a plausible solution. Wouldn’t it benefit a child in a larger body to “lay off the sweets”? Isn’t it better for their overall health if sugar wasn’t part of the equation?
The reality is this approach is working against something that wasn’t a problem to begin with.
When we step back to see the big picture, it’s apparent that our definition of health has been watered down and oversimplified to body size alone.
Kids are not exempt from this - their weights and body sizes are scrutinized from birth by well-meaning individuals, including family members, friends and professionals alike. The truth of the matter is, you can’t assess the overall health of children by the size of their bodies. Health encompasses a much bigger picture than weight or body size alone. When we try to micromanage a child’s body size by manipulating their food intake, this can quickly become a recipe for disaster.
Usually, the first thing to go for kids in larger bodies is sweets and desserts.
These foods have been demonized by diet culture, becoming the culprit for every disease and ailment known to man. There’s so much misinformation circulating about sugar and how it affects kids, from their behavior to their weight and more. Popular opinion outcries sugar as being “addictive”, something that kids shouldn’t be exposed to, less they become “addicted” to this substance at a young age.
(You better believe I have a whole separate post dedicated to debunking this harmful myth, so if you’re interested in reading more, be sure to check out this post: “Sugar Addiction: Is My Child Addicted to Sugar?”)
It might be prescribed to cut out sugar or limit sweets as a way to somehow curb a child’s weight, but again, this typically snowballs into a much bigger problem than before we even started. Some parents may begin to worry about the trajectory of their child’s weight, and out of purely good-intentions, they limit desserts and sweets.
In fact, here are some of the common reasons why sugar might be limited for a child in a larger body.
Why Sugar Might Be Limited:
Parents might fear how it’s affecting their child’s overall health and weight
Parents are worried about bullying around their child’s body size
Parental desire for the child to lose weight
Parental uncomfortability with their child’s body size
Child’s uncomfortability with their own body size
Child self-expressed desire to lose weight or to be in a smaller body
Recommended by healthcare professionals, including pediatricians or nutritionists
A child’s school nutrition or dental program may promote limiting sugar intake
Mainstream media messages that create fear-mongering messages around sugar, health, and body size
Child/Parental desire to improve athletic performance
A family history of certain diseases, including diabetes
These are legitimate fears and concerns parents are facing. The world is cruel to people in larger bodies and especially harsh to children who may be in larger bodies. I know that as a parent, you want to do everything you can to protect your child from the fears and worries they may encounter because of their body size.
Every parent I’ve talked to who’s expressed worry and concern about their child being in a larger body size has only EVER wanted the best for their child. As a mother of 5 myself, I understand this in the depth of my being.
And so, parents start looking for a solution to fix the “problem”, because being in a larger body can seem like a problem for many reasons. Restricting sugar and limiting sweets and desserts seems like an easy place to start. Until it’s not.
The thing is, children often interpret their own self-worth through messages around food and their body sizes.
For example, kids may internalize unspoken messages about food restriction to mean things like:
“I’m not good enough to eat these foods.”
“I’m not small enough to eat these foods.”
“I have to be in a smaller body to eat things like desserts.”
“I have to earn desserts.”
“There’s something wrong with my body the way it is.”
Of course, this is not the intention behind limiting sweets and desserts. However, the impact of food restriction, particularly with children, can’t be overstated.
So let’s look at this a little closer.
If you feel like limiting your child’s sugar intake is necessary because of your child’s body size, I want to give you some food for thought (no pun intended) so that you have the information you need to make an informed decision.
Because the truth is, your feeding approach plays an important role in shaping your children’s relationship with food and how they feel in their bodies for years to come. The great news is that you can play a positive and influential role in this relationship for their lifetime.
I want to be clear that this post is NOT about shaming parents who are trying their best to raise healthy kids.
Speaking out about these common feeding practices for children who are in larger bodies is about dismantling diet culture, not the people who may fall prey to its alluring promises. There is nothing stronger than empowered parents who are standing up to diet culture and stopping diet legacies from entering another generation.
So with that said, let’s talk more about why limiting or restriction sweets can be counterproductive for a child.
5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Restrict Sweets
Kids are more likely to overeat restricted foods:
While limiting sweets and desserts may seem like a suitable option, one of the concerning consequences is how this actually makes these foods become even more desirable. When a child is restricted or limited from having certain foods, those foods become idolized and put up on a pedestal.
Kids are naturally drawn to the things they’re told they can’t have, and this is no different with food. When a child knows certain foods are out of reach, they start to look for them more frequently, think about them more often, and go out of their way to find them.
Research has found that restrictive feeding practices, like limiting a child’s access to and consumption of desserts, actually promotes the intake of restricted foods, while generating negative feelings about eating restricted foods. Children who experience restriction may come to perceive restricted foods as being highly attractive.
In other words, kids are more likely to overeat the foods they’re restricted from in the long-term, as well as develop feelings of guilt and shame around eating those foods. I’ve worked with many mothers who can trace their food guilt back to childhood, remembering times they were restricted from eating dessert or sweets.
The cycle can easily repeat itself. Restricting and limiting sweets can increase a child’s preoccupation and obsession with these foods, mimicking symptoms of addiction.
2. Jeopardize their relationship with food:
Controlling child-feeding practices limit children’s opportunities to learn how to self-regulate their intake. Parental use of restriction may learn to associate the consumption of restricted foods with parent’s disapproval.
Children naturally have the ability to self-regulate their intake and are born with this programming to eat an amount of food that best supports their growth and development. However, when restrictive and/or controlling feeding practices enter the picture, this can unintentionally shift a child away from internal regulators to external regulation.
Meaning, kids will be less likely to trust their bodies to help them with self-regulation and begin to look to outside forces to guide their food choices. This can make food become chaotic and become a breeding ground for an unhealthy relationship with food and body distrust.
3. Disrupt their natural growth trajectory:
Children are in a phase of growth and need consistency with food to best support their growth and development. The reality is, no one knows best, in regards to how much a child needs to eat to support their growth, than the child.
When food intake is controlled and/or restricted due to concerns around a child’s body size, this can actually interfere with the child’s natural growth trajectory. Through the growing process, children inevitably experience body changes. When food intake is altered according to a child’s body size, this undermines a child’s ability to self-regulate what is needed to best support their growth.
Underfeeding or restriction by limiting/controlling certain foods, like desserts, can influence a child to overeat these foods over the long run. This can inadvertently alter the course and natural progression of growth that would otherwise happen when kids are trusted to eat and offered a variety of foods within the context of regular meals and snacks.
4. Increases risk of disordered eating:
Research has found that dieting is the most important predictor of new eating disorders in adolescents. Food restriction, no matter how well-intentioned, can be a contributing factor in the development of an eating disorder, especially when a child is going through puberty and adolescence.
Remember, restriction and/or dieting of any kind can disrupt a child’s natural trust in their body cues, making food feel chaotic and out of control.
Dieting or restriction doesn’t create a way toward health for children. Unfortunately, it is a fast tract to disordered eating, body shame, food obsession, and in many cases, full blown eating disorders.
5. Creates shame around a child’s body size:
When body size becomes a criteria for the foods kids are allowed to eat or not eat, this doesn’t allow children to build unconditional acceptance around their bodies.
From the onset, this communicates the message that there's something wrong with their bodies as they are and precludes them from having permission to enjoy all foods. (This is what makes these foods even more desirable and what creates chaos around these foods, turning this into a vicious cycle).
We want our children to learn that they are worthy of enjoying a variety of foods, including desserts, no matter their body sizes.
When children are trusted to eat all foods, they cultivate trust within themselves, making it possible for them to enjoy a positive relationship with food and their bodies. Body shame can be prevented by making all foods accessible to children, regardless of their body sizes.
So in knowing the ineffectiveness of limiting or restricting desserts and sweets from children, what’s a better way to approach these foods?
For starters, it’s important to approach desserts with children in larger bodies the same way you would for children in smaller bodies. Remember - body size is not a criteria for determining whether or not a child is able to eat certain foods, like desserts.
Here are some ideas to help support you as you consider your approach to desserts with your own children, regardless of their body sizes, in order to help them build a positive relationship with food and their bodies.
How to Offer Desserts to Your Child (No Matter Their Body Size)
Sometimes, when parents hear me advise not to restrict kids from eating desserts, they think this means I’m saying kids should just have free rein and access to whatever sweets they want, whenever they want - that no shouldn’t ever be given.
While this may seem like the opposite of restricting a child from sugar, this approach is not productive either in supporting children to develop a healthy relationship with food.
Children still need structure and support around all food, and that is where our jobs with feeding come in as parents.
We still need to be the ones to provide regular meals and snacks for our children, and within this structure, we can incorporate access to desserts and sweets to help our kids learn how to self-regulate an amount that feels best in their bodies.
It is possible to create structure and support for your children without them feeling restricted or limited from any food, including desserts.
Here are some tips to help you implement this in your own home:
Offer desserts with meals and/or snacks:
In order to maintain a sense of structure around food, it is important to have a predictable rhythm around eating times. Making regular meal and snack times available for your children can help them better self-regulate their appetite and feel more secure around food in general.
Within the context of their meal and snack schedule, you can offer desserts. I encourage parents to offer desserts alongside meals and snacks in order to establish an equal playing field for all foods. When desserts are served after a meal, kids tend to overeat to get to their dessert. OR they learn that desserts are something that have to be earned in some fashion, which puts them out of touch with their bodies. For more support on this, be sure to check out this post here: “7 Practical Reasons Why To Offer Your Kids Dessert With Dinner”
2. Offer desserts regularly:
Desserts are often saved for special occasions or not offered often enough for fear they may be too “unhealthy” for kids. This is where it’s so important to zoom back and see the big picture at hand. Your child may need exposure to sugar at a frequency higher than what you’re comfortable with in order to feel more neutral about it.
When desserts are only offered at special occasions, like holidays, or are used as a reward, they’re more likely to become a novelty for kids, which makes them MORE desirable, even something they start to obsess about. If your child is frequently asking you about dessert or always wondering when is the next time they get something sweet, they may actually need MORE exposure to this.
Sometimes, this looks like having desserts on a daily basis or even multiple times a day within the context of meals and snacks. Offering your child something sweet without them asking can also help wear off the novelty around dessert. For more help with this, be sure to check out this post here: “How Much Sugar is Okay For My Child to Eat?”
3. Watch language around food, especially desserts:
How we respond and talk to our children around language is of the utmost importance. If a child is constantly hearing, “No!”, every time they ask for sweets, this can again, make them even more desirable. Kids often think, “Hmmm, I wonder what it is about these foods that my parents don’t want me to eat them?”
Now again, this doesn’t mean you need to say “YES!” to your kids every single time they ask for something sweet or give in to their requests. It’s still important for you to hold firm but loving boundaries around food. My encouragement to parents is to “lead with a yes” when your child does request desserts.
Meaning, you’re acknowledging their request and desire to try/eat certain foods, but you’re not giving into them in those particular moments. For example, if your child wants a popsicle RIGHT NOW, you can respond by saying something along the lines of, “I know you’d like to eat a popsicle. That’s not on the menu right now.
Let’s have popsicles with our snack after we go to the park today.” In effect, you’re reassuring your child those foods will be available in the future and not shutting down their dessert requests. On another note, I also encourage parents to just call desserts for what they are: Lollipops, ice cream, cake, cookies, etc. When you use the actual name instead of categorizing it into “desserts”, “treats”, etc, it helps make them less of a novelty for your children.
Ways to Support Your Child’s Health (That Don’t Involve Dieting)
I hope this helps give you a better frame of reference through which you can use to help support your children with food and their bodies.
On a final note about this, I just want to acknowledge how challenging it may be to raise a child who is in a larger body, especially in a predominate dieting culture that glorifies thinness at all costs.
Keep in mind that thinness is not an indicator of health. Ultimately, by focusing on the big picture goal of helping your children learn how to have a positive relationship with food and their bodies, you will support them in growing into the bodies they are meant to have and in leading a healthful and meaningful life.
Remember, health for children (and adults) comprises multiple things, including things like:
Mental health
Physical activity
Family Meals
Food security
Relationships and social interactions
Having access to healthcare and safe spaces to play
Sleep routines
...and more!
At the end of the day, dieting is a harmful, not helpful solution to support your child’s overall health and wellness.
For more support on this, be sure to check out this post here: “Instead of a Diet for Kids, These Healthy Habits Create Real Change”
If you’re concerned about your child’s body size, please consider working with a pediatric dietitian who works from the health at every size and non-diet approach.
If you need more help around your approach to sugar to support your kids in building a healthy relationship with all foods, join me in my upcoming workshop: "5 Ways to Simplify Your Approach to Sweets So That Your Child Develops a Positive Relationship With Food.”
Sign up on the waitlist below!
Now I’d love to hear from you! What questions do you have around sugar and kids? Feel free to leave them in the comments section below.