74 // Offering Dessert with Dinner
Offering Dessert with Dinner
tapering and taming our kids’ interest in candy with a counter-intuitive approach
One of the best times to begin neutralizing sweets and treats in our homes is following Halloween. While our kids already have candy top of mind, take the opportunity to role model an intuitive eating approach through regular opportunities to enjoy candy, including having it as dessert with dinner. By reinforcing food freedom over arbitrary food rules, we learn to better trust our children’s ability to self-regulate and in doing so, encourage them to do the same.
In this episode, we chat about:
Why, as parents, we assume dessert should be served after dinner
Why research shows offering dessert with dinner can be a more effective approach for raising kids who have healthy relationships with all foods
How to begin offering dessert with dinner (and how to counter your own rigid food rules as you practice normalizing this new routine)
Listen to this episode of The Veggies & Virtue Podcast now!
Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
75. Dessert with Dinner
[00:00:00] Okay. One of the best. Begin neutralizing sweets and treats in our homes is right after Halloween. So while our kids already have candy on the top of their mind, I want you to think about how you can be taking advantage of role modeling and intuitive eating approach in your home through the regular routine opportunities that you already have available to yourself to enjoy candy, including drum roll dessert with dinner by Rui enforcing food freedom over arbitrary food.
[00:01:45] We learn to better trust our children's ability to self-regulate. And in doing so, we also encourage them to do the same with their own bodies. But I know even mentioning offering dessert with dinner seems like a completely crazy idea to most people, my own husband included. This is not a concept that most of us are one familiar with and two comfortable with.
[00:02:09] And so by even suggesting this, As adults, we often can't imagine how this could make sense, let alone how it seems to make sense for our kids when we're trying to raise healthy eaters. So I wanna walk you through thinking a little bit about how many of us, not all of us, but of course many of us in the generation of parents today were raised, and how that's impacted the way we view eating candy versus how we may as parents want to raise our.
[00:02:38] Around things like sweets, treats, and candy, and what the research shows us could be the long term implication for them and how that differs from us. In many families, it is considered very customary to have dessert after dinner, and for a lot of us, we may have never even questioned why this is or is this the way it should be because for many of us it's, we just, you know, if it's not broken, don't fix it, and we don't realize that this.
[00:03:08] Is broken because what we often see is this mentality field to kind of walk through a meal. With me, we're expected to eat a meal, and if we're reinforcing the ability to self-regulate and we're trying to foster an intuitive eating approach that knows how to eat in which foods, in which order, and what amounts, and to tune into our.
[00:03:31] it doesn't make sense why we would then be withholding something like dessert until after the meal is done, because then we are already teaching and training our bodies that you need to fill up to a certain point with this food before you can have the next food. So I want you to walk through this a little bit more with me because when we think about trying to help our kids shape a relationship with.
[00:03:57] That sees all food as neutral, that the mashed potatoes are no different than the marshmallow risk Kris treats nutritionally. Yes, there is a difference, but what we know from the research on what we know in terms of raising kids who have eating competence, being the ability to self-regulate and have a healthy relationship with all foods.
[00:04:18] What we see is that this approach of offering dessert after dinner can really counter our long term goals. Because what we're doing is we're telling our kids that you can't trust your body. You need to be in an environment that restricts a given food like a dessert until you've eaten a given amount of one food and then you will be rewarded with this given food being a.
[00:04:46] After you've eaten it. So when we think about it from a purely physiological perspective, that's very backwards. It doesn't make sense how we're training our bodies to know how to self-regulate when food of a certain type is being withheld, even if dessert doesn't seem to be intentionally restricted. In this way, when we think about training our bodies to be in tune with hunger and fullness cues, and we're eating dinner.
[00:05:14] to a point of perceived fullness, and then we're having dessert after that. It becomes so difficult for us to physiologically understand those cues that our bodies are giving us and that our brain body connection has that we're now eating past a point of fullness. So it's no wonder why as adults it's very difficult for us to.
[00:05:37] Are we satisfied? Have we had enough at where does dessert fall for us? Because we don't have to feel physiological hunger. And I do think that there's reasons to eat outside of true hunger, and there's things that do bring us joy, like dessert. But what we don't wanna be doing is setting up this stage and this scenario for our kids that we say eat to a point of fullness.
[00:06:01] And then for this food, this specific type of food, this dessert category. You eat beyond fullness because then where does it begin and where does it end? It's countering this intrinsic ability to know, When to eat, what order to eat and how much to eat. When we look at it from the emotional perspective, we understand why something that many of us as moms struggle with and that we are setting our kids up to also struggle with is this emotional relationship with food.
[00:06:34] That feels that there's a hierarchy of food, that the broccoli is lesser than the brownie because are we ever withholding broccoli to the end of the meal and letting our kids have brownies at will, and you know, served themselves and enjoyed in whatever order they want? No, there is an emotional component that elevates these certain foods like sweets and treats above the rest of the foods.
[00:06:59] And so what we see is that. Eliminates that food neutrality that we really want to reinforce in our families. And additionally, the other area of trust and control that we see broken is between parent and child. Because so often as parents, we have not learned to trust our own bodies to self-regulate around food because we've been raised often in an environment that has reinforced this is the pattern of what we do, this is the way that food should be offered, and we have this rigidity that.
[00:07:33] A food rule to be followed, that you eat dessert first, or excuse me, you eat dinner first, followed by dessert. And it creates these arbitrary food rules that are really rooted in diet culture much more than in any nutritional science that says this is actually the healthier way for us to approach eating foods, including foods like desserts.
[00:07:57] Instead, what we wanna be thinking about, how do we create pattern. That are based on self-regulation. So going back to the trust and the control element between parent and child, we see that when we elevate this hierarchy and when we reinforce this, you must eat this before this, we are tapping into that emotional dynamic of.
[00:08:20] controlling what our kids eat in which order. We're not trusting them to know how to self-regulate. We're not reinforcing patterns that give them the opportunity to practice self-regulation. And we'll get into what that looks like actually when it comes to eating dessert with dinner and a lot of the objections that parents have, but additionally, we're not showing them.
[00:08:42] We trust them to tune into their bodies and to know and to be able to self-regulate around such foods as candy, and that's reinforcing to them. You can't be trusted around this food, and that just recycles some of these disordered eating patterns that have generationally continued and not been stopped as this is broken, we need to fix this.
[00:09:06] Instead, we just continue to repeat these rigid rules around our kids. So I want us to ask our. How can we do different, How is dessert with dinner intended to help make things like sweets and treats and the candy that we may have after Halloween offered in a way that reinforces food freedom? And of course, in the scope of nutritional balance, and we still wanna make sure that.
[00:09:34] You know, our kids are eating a nutritional balance, but so often that's where we start. And as parents, we come into it with so many objections. We just know that if this is what we do, if we offer dessert to our kids with dinner, that that's all they're going to eat. That if we give them candy at the table alongside the roasted carrots, that that's what they're going to eat first.
[00:10:00] And my question to you is why do we. nutritionally speaking as a dietician, as a mom of three, who has kids at the table, and who uses this approach myself. Who cares if they eat the candy before the carrots? And what in what way does that really matter? If we're reinforcing trust and control in the feeding relationship?
[00:10:23] We're reinforcing it between parent and child, which is so important, but we're also reinforcing to our kids. You can trust yourself around this. , and I trust you around this food because if this is something that just automatically triggers you, I ask you to pause and think about do you trust yourself?
[00:10:45] Do you feel that you have control yourself around foods like candy? Because so often we are projecting on our kids a restriction or rigidity around certain. Because we ourselves don't feel food freedom around them. We don't have a secure, stable relationship around such foods as those we have elevated such foods to be a very emotionally dysfunctional relationship where, you know, we, we just, we struggle with these foods.
[00:11:15] And so then as parents, we don't know how to respond and we don't know how to do anything other than restrict. And one of the ways we inadvertently restrict such foods is by offering such. After dinner, we're gonna talk about how to do this right after a commercial break.
[00:13:11] So what I want you to think about is how can you actually do this? And the day is following Halloween where? Are trying to taper our kids' Halloween candy intake. And on Halloween, you know my ki I'll speak for my own family. My kids got to decide however much Halloween candy that they wanted that day.
[00:13:29] Is that what we're going to do every day? No. And is that what I'm encouraging you to do is stick the whole Halloween candy bucket out on the dinner table. No, I want you to understand exactly how to do this, but I also want you to start out with thinking how you can begin to confront some of these preformed beliefs you have about why offering dessert with dinner seems so bogus.
[00:13:50] Because really when we look at long term goals in our immediate action, if they don't align. We need to really think, what are we doing now and what direction is us? Is it putting us and our family and our kids in their relationship with food versus looking at the end goal and working backwards? And so often from the research we see that the best place for us as.
[00:14:15] Families who are wanting to reinforce responsive feeding styles is to, at times offer dessert with dinner. So what does this look like? How do we actually go about this with, I'll stick with the example of Halloween can just because this is airing right after Halloween. But the principles are going to apply whether you're doing a cookie, a leftover birthday cupcake, or Halloween candy.
[00:14:40] And the way that you're going to do this, whether you serve meals, family style, Or you're pre plating in the kitchen, what you're going to do is you're going to take one serving of the given dessert and make that available to each member of the family. And so in our home, we serve family style. So all the food, the pots and the pans and everything that I cooked in are brought over, put in the center of this table.
[00:15:02] And everyone is allowed to have their fair share of what's available. But just like other foods, we only have certain amounts available of them. And with the dessert, it's going to be that same. So say we're having chicken and roasted potatoes and broccoli and candy. That's what's out on the table. That's what we're having for the next dinner.
[00:15:22] And so as we go about the meal, everyone has any other option at the table, whether it's candy or roasted potatoes. We are passing those elements. Everyone is allowed and encouraged to take a little bit of everything that's made available and put it on their. So this would look like in my family of five, we would have five pieces of candy out.
[00:15:43] My kids will likely take that candy, put it on their plate alongside the chicken, the potatoes, and the broccoli, and it will be a part of the menu. It is just one of the offerings as if it was any other thing. Y'all might know that I often do fruit for dessert at dinner. We don't do candy or a, you know, a.
[00:16:02] typical dessert for dinner every day, but we typically offer some sort of dessert with dinner. So sometimes it might be strawberries or a piece of candy or cookies that we had left over from the day before or something like this. So the only real limitation that I would say to offering dessert at dinner.
[00:16:22] Is thinking through it from the perspective of the serving size. We do wanna keep it limited to one, but we're not restricting it for the sake of restricting. You have to be really careful with your language here because there's, there's that much available. Just the word there would be if I was offering strawberries for dessert and we just had the one container and my kids wanted more, I'd say, That's all we have available tonight.
[00:16:40] There's other foods available if you're still hungry. My response would be the exact same with a dessert like. That's all the candy we have available tonight. There's other foods available and I would just pivot in that approach. But we wanna be really in tune with what our response is because we are limiting the amount that we're out there.
[00:16:58] Just like I don't let my kids have refills of their cup of milk at dinner because I don't want them to only fill up on the milk. Dessert is an appropriate thing to be limiting the amount of as at a meal time as well. But by offering at dinner, we counter all those messages that we were talking about at the beginning that have often been re.
[00:17:16] By offering dessert after dinner. So what we're showing our kids is that I trust you around this food. It is open, it is out. There is no restriction. It is not a reward. It is on a neutral playing field as all the other foods on the table. And by doing this, it is reinforcing to our kids that neutrality that we need them to understand in order for them to have a healthy relationship with all foods.
[00:17:42] And this can be so challenging for us as. If we have not healed our own relationship with food and worked through some of that inner work of, do I trust myself around this food? Do I feel like I can control myself and have self-regulation with this food? What are my limiting beliefs about having this food at dinner and where are those discomforts that I face?
[00:18:04] Because those are our own relationship with food that we have to work. And wrestle through privately rather than projecting them on our kids. So as you come up with some of your objections, which trust me, you will, especially if you've never done this before, because I know going into it, a lot of parents will say, Well, my kid's only gonna eat the dessert for dinner.
[00:18:23] Be patient. Because just like kids do, they're gonna test you to see, do you really trust me? Are you really gonna let me control what I eat? Because when we look at a responsive feeding approach, we know it as our job as the parents. What, when and where food is offered. It is our child's job if weather and how much they eat.
[00:18:44] And so once you have put those elements at the table, once the chicken, the broccoli, and the roasted potatoes and the candy are out on the table, are you then trying to still. , negotiate with them or reward them or restrict them or tell them in what order they need to eat, which elements of the meal. And I challenge you, Press your tongue against the roof of your mouth and try not to say something, but just take in those comments that you're having in your head and that you want to say out loud and just hold them for.
[00:19:15] And see what your child does because some kids will go through a short phase of testing you and they may just eat the candy at dinner and they may not eat as much of the other foods, but as you stick this out, this is not gonna be weeks on weeks of them doing this. This is just them testing it to see how do my parents respond when I do this?
[00:19:37] Are they going to intervene and tell me that they know? Are they going to regulate my intake instead of encouraging me to self-regulate? Because our kids don't understand all the nuances of nutrition, but they do understand the patterns that we're promoting in our home just as we learn from our parents.
[00:19:55] Dessert is supposed to be after dinner, and you're supposed to eat until your plate is clean, and then that somehow signifies that your stomach is full. And now this somehow seems like an appropriate time to also have dessert on top of your already full. , just as those patterns were reinforced for us, we have to think of what patterns we're reinforcing for our kids.
[00:20:16] So this week I wanna challenge you. Have you ever done dessert with dinner? And if you haven't, try it this week and see how it works for your family. Go about offering a single serve portion for each family member on the table as if it was any other element. Of the meal. And then as objections come to mind, and as you have some of these questions, hold them with yourself for a minute.
[00:20:39] Talk to your spouse in advance. Talk with him about like, Hey, we're doing this, but we need to keep our comments to ourself and kind of sift through how we feel about this. Privately away from the table. Can we just try this at the table tonight? Can we just try this in the week following Halloween, as we taper their Halloween intake and we're sometimes, you know, regularly, yet routinely offering them candy so that it does become more commonplace and not this coveted food.
[00:21:07] Can we just try this at dinner? Some days it's gonna be at snack that we let them have that, and that's in varying amounts. At dinner. We're just gonna offer a small bull. Everyone's gonna do this. Can we try? And can we bring our objections and our discomforts about this to each other away from the table later and begin to work through that?
[00:21:29] Because as you do, I think what you'll see is that even though at first they may be kind of surprised with the novelty factor of you offering dessert at dinner, that novelty is going to wear off. And so often having that anxiety and that tension at the table of that power struggle of. You know, control factor being in limbo between who gets to control what at the meal, and us actually surrendering that to our kids.
[00:21:55] Offering dessert at dinner is gonna be one of the quickest and easiest ways for you to see is this something where I'm not releasing control over what my child eats and what order they eat and how much they eat before they get rewarded with something like a dessert. So challenge yourself and challenge yourself with the willingness and the expect.
[00:22:17] that you will be surprised that this extreme interest in candy that kids can be so often distracted by so often that dessert at the end of dinner makes our kids just race through the meal So often they don't really care about eating the dinner because they really just want to get to the end goal of dessert.
[00:22:36] You're going to be circumventing so many of these challenges and these other problems by doing this one thing of offering dessert with dinner.
