Fridge regulation for kids?

MrsGriffin67

My son (who's 18 now) would sneak into the fridge in the middle of the night and eat just about everything in the fridge and/or pantry. It got so bad that I had to put a bicycle lock around the handles of the side-by-side fridge and a deadbolt on the pantry. He has gotten better about it but he is extremely overweight now and is struggling with trying to lose the extra weight. I finally got him to join MFP this week and I think he is starting to like logging and keeping track of what he eats.

Justjamie0418

My kids always ask before they get something to eat.

Why?

because I have 5, and if it was a free-for-all we'd never have grocries or money for bills.

also so I can keep an eye on thier nutrion. I have 5 very different nutrional needs to attend to.

Guamybear

My children have always eaten whatever they want whenever they want, especially "my food" because I have always eaten a wide variety of food. My children are both in excellent shape with good eating habits today 16 and 19 years old.
It bothers me a bit when I see adults eating prime rib and veggies while their children eat hotdogs and French fries.
Having said that though, there is no right or wrong way as long as you are consistent so that they know their boundaries and feel safe within them.

this doesn't bother me because when we do eat out my kids would never have the prime rib..not because I won't let them but because the hot dog or pizza appeals to them more..

TheBaileyHunter

I was trying to feed three kids on a 50% below poverty income. I sure as hell had rules.

3 kids x 2pcs of fruit a day plus one alternative snack a day of the healthy variety plus breakfast, lunch & dinner...

That's a lot of f'n food. And many times I didn't eat or had one meal a day so they could eat.

Even when my income finally grew if I let my kids eat unhampered my food bill was about $1200/mth. If I kept control over it it was about $700/mth Teenagers are locusts in disguise.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is an amazing mother right there. What a perfect example of love and sacrifice for your kids. Bless you for putting first things first, and I certainly hope you are doing better now. :flowerforyou:

Aww... Thanks. :blushing:

Oh yeah. New job about 6yrs ago. Much better. now all my kids are young adults with my youngest being 17! And not one of them has an eating or weight issue. :happy:

JustLindaLou

My daughter is 5 and can get some of her own snacks, but she pretty much always asks first and shows me what she picked out. We keep a fairly "clean" pantry and fridge, so 99% of the choices I am going to say yes to. When she gets candy at birthday parties, Easter basket, etc, she gets to eat a couple pieces then and the rest goes into a box and she can pick something after school. Amazing how long the candy lasts, and even more amazing that she is trustworthy even though she can reach the box herself! Now, the hotdogs on the other hand... LOL I buy the Jennie-O turkey hotdogs for her, only about 70 cals apiece, but she likes them cold right out of the package :sick: ....and I have on occasion discovered she has eaten about 5 of them at a sitting!!! I try not to hassle her too much about food, mainly she cannot have dessert (on the rare occasion we have a dessert in the house) if she has only picked at her dinner. She is more of a "grazer" than one to eat a whole meal at a sitting, so I just serve small portions at mealtime and go with what works for her... She is very tall and slender and active all day long.

Yes, I do have foods just for me, like my Ghiradelli Twilight dark chocolate squares!! And also food just for her, and food that is for "us". She loves salads and salmon because I let her try what I am eating. Unfortunately I let her try my tuna sashimi once and she loved it... Ain't nobody can afford to have a child who loves sushi LOL!!!

I also have a friend with 3 kids and agree with what several of you posted - you've got to keep a rein on it or they will eat all the groceries in a day! She has specific snacks for them, and they each get their pick of 1 healthy and 1 "junk" snack per day.

akp4Him

As a kid we ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If we had a snack it was rare. There were 5 kids...I'm sure the budget was tight. Fruit was apples or oranges...nothing else.
As an adult...my kids (7 of them) usually ask. If they are hungry they will ask for a snack. They know that snack choices are string cheese, milk, nuts, veggies, or fruit. That is all. Once in a while we will have dessert. The dessert might be a tablespoon of M&Ms, or a cookie, or a small bowl of ice cream. My oldest is in college. She will make sure that what she eats isn't something I'm going to use for a meal.
There are a few things that are off limits. They cannot have my almond milk...they have regular milk. They cannot have my cereal...I make sure they have Life cereal or something similar. I make sure they have a fruit with every meal, a veggie with lunch and dinner, milk with breakfast, good protein, and whole grains on a daily basis.

jennpaulson

As kids we always had to ask for snacks if we wanted them. My mom didn't always keep stuff like that in the house, you ate what she fixed you at meal times and she fixed one meal for all of us. Ice cream, chips and soda were things that were only bought for birthdays or special occaisions, not kept on hand like in so many homes today. Every once and a while she would buy a pack or two of Little Debbie Oatmeal Pies or Swiss Rolls. We had to ask to get drinks and we knew that the iced tea was our parents and the Kool Aid was ours.

Now I have an only child and I have a cabinet that has just her favorite things in it (snacks, soups, cereals). Most of the time she's pretty good about not gobbling something up as soon as I buy it. But I also have a drawer in the fridge that I put my "healthier" choices in that for some reason is what she wants to eat lately so we have to battle. She's trying to make me feel guilty for having things for just me after all the years that I've bought things for just her (kids can be brats sometimes).

bantu2

The lower section of the door of the fridge is everything my daughter can have without asking...UNLESS I am making dinner! If I'm making dinner (or lunch) she can wait. Anything else she has to ask. I was pretty relaxed on this until I caught her sitting on the couch digging into the cream cheese I needed for something...with her fingers!

She's super skinny though so its not for weight issues as much as for "she's five and doesn't need free access" issue.

aeg176

For now I am lucky I have a two year old. However the other day I was on the phone and I look over and he had gotten a Capri sun roaring waters out of the fridge for himself no asking just cause he wanted one. Well he had just had one maybe 30-45 mins prior so that's a "no" you already had one. I then had to start the conversation of "you don't go in the fridge without asking". I know he will not get the whole point but it is the start of the conversation he will get to know well. My mom left when I was 10 after that I gained A LOT of weight and was overweight up until now, it was because I wasn't being monitored. I think it is important to regulate the fridge most of us ended up here because of overeating do you want your next friend request to be from your child?

ninerbuff

My DD always asks before she wants to eat something. Like any other kid, she'll ask for ice cream, chips, etc. I limit how much junk is in the house so it's usually not an issue. There is way more good food in the house than bad.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

JDBLY11

My mom always hid the foods she wanted just for herself, everything else was shared. Two of my sisters are skinny and I am fat so I think it works pretty well. I think kids should be able to eat what they want when they want it. My parents did not have foods just for themselves very often. They usually had healthy foods but had some snacks too. I plan to give my kids access to food whenever they are hungry. My son has free access to food. He still needs some help getting what he wants. I don't usually have stuff just for me and if I do I will share if he really wants some. I had some chocolate the other day and I gave a portio n to my son and he was quite happy. My son likes healthy food . He loves salad and fruit. He is a healthy weight too at 5 and around 40 lbs.

My husbands family did have regulations on food and he still asks to eat. I always thought that was odd. When I was old enough I was encouraged to make my own meals. I used to make my own breakfast and lunch was usually leftovers. Dinner was usually fresh made by my mom but sometimes was takeout.

OCTOBERLISA

Growing up with two brothers, we had no regulations. It was a free for all any time of the day or night.

joyjay4fun

I was an only child so i never asked for anything, that spoiled streak I guess. Mine ask for snacks but I dont regulate what snacks they can have. I keep a variety of foods in the house. When I buy things just for me, I just put it out of there reach so its a non issue. Mine are 14 and 3 and both have tapeworms I swear because they eat non-stop. I don't get too picky about it as long as they finish their dinner every night including all veggies or whatever. Since I'm not really dieting just being more aware of what I eat, it's starting to rub off on them too. I still buy sweets and goodies, it's just about moderation for everybody. Cereal for me is the biggest issue, these kids will eat an entire box of cereal in one day straight out of the box lol.

cma17

If you could make my boy friend ask I'd be happy :happy: he eats everything and just before tea time

dakotababy

Well I never had to ask as a child, I could help myself. Usually my parents only had healthier things to snack on - and I knew what time supper was. So I would know enough not to eat so much to spoil supper.

When i have children, I don't plan to restrict (unless if it is an ingredient I need for supper).

ahern89

My parents never regulated food when my brother and I were children. If we wanted something then we could have it and as much as we wanted, and there was usually more junk food than healthy snack food in the house. I'd go through a big bag of chips within a couple days, and snack cakes I'd probably have two or three a day, and usually had three or four glasses of soda each day. When it was meal time my father usually cooked and he would cook twice as much food as we needed, so I'd eat until I was stuffed, and often my father would praise my brother and I for eating so much (my mother worked a lot so wasn't home as often). It was probably worse at my grandparents. Whenever I'd stay over there I'd have ice cream or pie for breakfast. Not to mention when we ate out, which was at least twice a week if not more, I was allowed to get whatever I wanted no matter the size. All of that would explain why I ballooned up to 230lbs at one point. It wasn't until I moved away to go to college that I figured out how badly I had been eating and I've slowly learned moderation, and just because something delicious is in the fridge or in the cupboard that I have to eat it (unlike my brother). I wish my parents would have had stricter rules regarding what I could eat when I was a kid, it wasn't exactly fun going through my teens as a fat kid.

kimbtaylor1

I have three boys 3, 6 and 12 from birth they have all been taught that unless its water you must ask. I don't want meals to be spoiled and I want to be able to keep a tap on junk food that they eat. I will set out ask free foods for them to have for snacks durring the day (carrot sticks, celery and peanut butter, etc.). But anything other than that is very closely monitored.
As a kid I was allowed what ever I wanted. I was never taught that too much sugar, fats, carbs were a bad thing. I only found that out as I got older and bigger. Over the past two years I have also removed the unhealthy snacks from the house for the most part. (Hubby has to have his Little Debbies) I do keep special treats for them and trust me they enjoy the ice cream a whole lot more when it isn't an option every day.

Guamybear

I hope as mine get older there won't be much regulation and they will know their limits. Slowly changes are being made.. I got some great ideas about certain shelves with only healthy snacks etc.. I might have to try some of that.. We even had to set a snack schedule up in this house when because they just wanted to eat every 2 hours..

bcattoes

My girls are grown now but they had food rules when they were kids. Partly for health reasons and partly because money was tight and partly so they wouldn't spoil their dinner.

PlayerHatinDogooder

When I was growing up I was far more interested in the liquor cabinet than I was the fridge.

Alliwan

My kids have to ask
I dont want them eating food just before dinner
I want to know how much is left in the fridge so i know if i need to get more

my daughter is 16 and she asks always. i need to know how much food i have left because she isnt good aobut writing it on the shopping list if she finishes the last of soemthing.

then again, this child asks if she can listen to music in the shower, turn on her computer in the morning for school, go to bed at night, etc. ive never expected her to ask for every little thing but its something she does anyways, annoying somedays

abrodniak

My kids have their own drawer in the fridge and their own shelf in the kitchen. They can eat whatever is there as long as it is not too close to dinner. I try to keep their snacks fairly healthy. As far as sweets go, they have to ask permission.

JenRun1

Yes, my 2 boys 11 and 6 have to ask, mainly because I want to know what their intake is everyday, and partly because if they are just bored, I don't want them going to the fridge all the time. So if they say they are hungry and I offer them an apple and they decline then I know they aren't hungry, just eatting for the hell of it.

kenzietate

I'm 22 and I still ask my parents if I can eat certain foods when I'm at home visiting!

Same here!

When I was growing up we were allowed to eat as many fruits and veggies we wanted without asking. Mom would just tell us if she planned to use one of them for dinner or something. Everything else we had to ask first.

castadiva

We had more-or-less free reign of fridges and cupboards, except for the 'treat' stash. The basic rule was: if there's not much of something left, or it's something 'special' or a treat, ask first, otherwise it was essentially open-season on fruit & veg, yoghurt, cheese, crackers, cereal etc. Mind you, with the sort of schedules both my sister and I had, plus two senior management-level parents and a nanny, that was probably the only way life could have worked!

cook6609

I dont want them to continue to be picky, so I have implemented food charts for them. Some people think this is extreme and that I am wrong in doing this. The food charts are broken up into days of the week and they get stickers each time they eat a fruit/vegetable/meat/etc. They know that certain categories (for my daughter it is bread, she could eat a loaf a day if I let her) she only gets so many servings. Why? because when I talked to her doctor regarding how to get her weight up, my options were the Pediasure EXPENSIVE drink to provide additional nutrients and calories, or get her on a better eating habits, and not fill up on starches and liquids (juice, milk, etc). It isnt good to eat only one type of food, so her favorite food (butter bread) HAS to be limited. This is teaching her now that things need to be in moderation, rather than eating all the bread you want and not eating any chicken or whatever.

I think this is a wonderful idea!!! I agree that it teaches moderation as well as to eat the things that are most nutritious.

While my children are quite young, they rarely get into the fridge and just get whatever they want. The majority of things in my fridge need to be cooked or are drinks (milk/juice). It's never a free for all in my house, and I don't think it should ever be. The only thing I don't complain about my children "getting out of the fridge" are fruits and vegetables. I want them to know that those are good snack choices. I don't see a problem keeping your children out of the fridge. However, if they are hungry and need a snack make sure you have healthy snacks for them to eat (not cookies, candy, etc).

faedreamer1

We always had to ask before eating stuff when I was a kid. That had less to do with health/weight issues and more to do with us being pretty poor and the food had to last until payday or we were all screwed.

I'm pretty convinced that strict restricting of food as a child (even though I understand the why of it now as an adult) has led to some of my weight issues. I'm virtually terrified of letting the fridge/freezer/cupboards get low or even remotely empty, which leads to having way more food around at all times than I really need (and spending way more at the store for my two person household than most 5 person families). Now that I'm changing my lifestyle to a healthier approach, I still have that need to keep the house full of food, I just make sure it's healthy options. But the food insecurity, as it's called, will always be there, courtesy of my upbringing.

I'd be careful restricting a child's free access to foods. Even for good reasons, it can have lifelong implications you might not realize.

kayaksara

We don't have any hard rules but my daughters, 13 and 10, usually ask. We don't have much junk in the house so I am not overly concerned. I like to encourage variety and getting the right nutrition in a day. They are active and in sports and good students and at healthy weights. They eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full. They know they need to eat a big breakfast tha includes protein. We save waffles with syrup for the weekends. We usually have icecream in the outside freezer or cookies in a back pantry. They expecially need to ask for them. But out of sight is out of mind. They only ask once every 1-2 weeks so my answer is always yes. Hoping to keep their relationship with food nice and healthy. Right now they seem to have a good grasp on variety, moderation, nothing is off limits and making choices to feel their best. Great post!

Elpaw4mbv

We have a budget for our groceries so there are absolutely rules around snacking and grazing.

The boys (7 & 10) are allowed to get snacks as needed but within certain rules, like only 1 yogurt per day, no more than 3 pieces of fruit per day, no more than one individual serving bag of chips/pretzels or smartpop per day, only 1 serving of cheese cubes or slices per day, etc. The only thing that they can have with absolutely no restriction on quantity is cut raw veggies: celery sticks, bell pepper strips, cherry tomatos, carrot sticks, or cut broccoli. (If the veggies are uncut - hands off because those are destined for use in a meal.)

The snacking period starts a 1/2 hour after a meal has been consumed and lasts until an 1/2 prior to the time that hubby or I begin preparing the next meal. I also ask them wait for 15 minutes between snacks and have a drink of water before they can get something else...that was previously enforced but has now become habit.

When we do have candy (Halloween, Easter, Christmas) or baked goods in the house (leftover birthday cake, cookies, items purchased at school/sports/church bake sales) - those are a permission only items.

The only beverage they are allowed to get without permission outside of mealtimes is water. At meals the beverage will be milk or juice depending on the meal. Sometimes in the summer I will make up a pitcher of lemonade (real stuff not mix) and leave it in fridge for them to get at will. I do not buy soda and as a result neither of them care for it. (They have had the opportunity to try soda at friends houses or birthday parties and usually ask for water instead. Neither likes the "fizziness" of it.)

The only foods that are "off limits" are my Skinny Cow bars or Frutare bars. We typically have ice cream or frozen treats for hubby and the kids as dessert and since I'm avoiding the stuff they eat - I will buy things that are within my calorie or fat guidelines.

Neither kid is a picky eater. When eating out - we let them decide whether to eat from kids menu or adult menus - so sometimes we are the family where the adults are having prime rib and veggies while the kids have hots dogs and fries, and sometimes its the reverse. But most of the time, I am having to explain to a waitperson that "No, really, he knows what X is and it's okay if he wants it for his dinner." Of course, it's probably due to the fact that my husband and I refused to be "short order cooks" at meal times when they were little and set the expectation very early that you eat what is put before you or you go hungry til the next meal or offered snack. We also insist that they take and swallow at least one bite of anything new. When left to make their own decisions they generally choose the healthier options. Although, there have been times that they choose junk.

This seems to work for us - my kids are both at healthy weights trending towards the leaner end of the weight charts with good muscle tone and development.

myfrogs11

I only regulate junk. For 2 reasons. To teach portion control and so they don't eat all the junk in a day then want/expect me to buy more. Sodas they have to ask for, one allowed per day and if they've eaten junk all day I say no. Chips they can have, in a bowl or baggie, not sit down with the entire bag. And if I see they're eating chips and haven't had anything else to eat, I make them get a "meal" (sandwich, etc) to have with it. Having both girls I don't want to ever give them any kind of issues with food. I want them to learn they can eat anything they want, but just pay attention to how much of it they eat. If we don't have a real dinner with vegetables or they choose not to eat the veggies with dinner, there's no dessert. I just try to put the priority on the good food and not the junk. Like get in the good stuff first and then worry about the junk after.