KiasuParents - Parenting in Singapore

My daughter keeps on eating junk foods which are very unhealthy..Im always giving her favorite foods which are rich in nutrients but she always seek for junk foods as her dessert!.. If i refuse her (junk food request), she will not eat the whole meal.. This is a burden for me..

All kids will eat when hungry. So throw away all junk food and don't worry if she refuses to eat her meal. At the next meal, she will be hungry enough that anything will taste good.

haha but her pride was so high that she even not her meal the whole day.. she just ate few though.. but its not enough though

chenSee wrote:haha but her pride was so high that she event her meal the whole day.. she just ate few though.. but its not enough though

Just persevere. Hunger will win eventually. A few days with less food won't have any long-term consequences as most kids in Singapore are very well-nourished and will have reserves.

Are this junk food easily available at home?

It is a skill and also a habit to make a child not crazy of junk food. My kids are so used to eating healthy food since young that fruits become desserts, becos thats the only things that are sweet and juicy.

They get chips and chocolates from childcare centres during birthday celebrations and the school has strict rules of not allowing the kids to eat them in school. These junk food are put away out of sight, only made available during special occasion like picnics.

It becomes a habit for them to eat their veges and fruits that they are not so crazy abt fast food, esp KFC. The kids still look forward to MAcs but i realise it is the fun environment that they like more than the food itself.

b2b3m4 wrote:Are this junk food easily available at home?

It is a skill and also a habit to make a child not crazy of junk food. My kids are so used to eating healthy food since young that fruits become desserts, becos thats the only things that are sweet and juicy.

This is very true. I was very strict about junk food when my kids were small, and they got used to fresh and dried fruits as the main 'sweets', plain water with juice once a day, and lots of veg. They got other sweets at grandma's house (but limited to once a week) and fast food only once every few weeks. I had to relax as they grew older, but now they are teenagers, they still prefer fresh fruits and veg rather than fast and junk food.

If your kid is still young you can easily manipulate their food choices. If junk food is an issue, limit the amount of junk food you have at home. I do not have any soft drinks at home. I do have honey, ribena cordial and homemade passion fruit sryup. I used to have instant noodles and saugages or ham at home but realise that my helper has been giving those to me kids too frequently so I stopped stocking those.

Fruits after each meal is a standard. There is no ice-cream or jelly at home. We hardly have fastfood, at most maybe once in a few months. When we eat out, we tend to go for jap or lamian. The kids get their ice-cream fix and granpa's and granma's.

For snacks, when they are younger, I will always have cheese cubes in the fridge. They will eat those with plain crackers. I bake so sometimes I will make oatmeal raisin cookies or muffins and chiffon cakes. Now that they are older, DS is not a snacker. DD will still snack so what I do is stock up on edamame and frozen corn kernels. So when the munchies hit her, she will just heat some up and munch on them.

Not saying that they don't touch any junk at all, they still do get their chocolates and chips but not often. I did not strictly forbid them any junk food in fact, I don't even restrict. But since all these are not available at home, they do not have the habit of eating them.

slmkhoo wrote:

chenSee wrote:haha but her pride was so high that she event her meal the whole day.. she just ate few though.. but its not enough though

Just persevere. Hunger will win eventually. A few days with less food won't have any long-term consequences as most kids in Singapore are very well-nourished and will have reserves.

Yes I agree hunger will win. 牛口渴时，一定会低头。

If the child is so strong willed, I believe simkhoo's method is the most efficient and effective.

b2b3m4 wrote: They get chips and chocolates from childcare centres during birthday celebrations and the school has strict rules of not allowing the kids to eat them in school. These junk food are put away out of sight, only made available during special occasion like picnics.

This school is good. I am happy with the one my child is attending but one thing I don't like about them is that they do not seem to care what (food) the parents provide for the kids. Many kids in this school reach the school very early eg 7.15am but breakfast is served only at 8.30am. Hence some parents provide pre-breakfast snack for their kids. What I have seen so far - want want biscuits, mamee noodle crackers (yes, u read right), Meiji pnada biscuits, Taiwanese sausages （those u can find in pasar malam pinkish fat fat type). I am so disgusted and cannot fathom why are the parents doing this to their kids. Becos the school don't stop those parents, my only defense is to teach my son not to accept his friend's offer (to share their junk food).

My son takes after his father, both likes crunchy or nutty stuff. As a compromise, he has cornflakes instead of chips, edaname/french bean instead of nuts, Milo/coco crunch instead of chocolates.