Ways of Breaking Your Child’s Addiction to Sweets

4 Sure-shot Ways of Breaking Your Child’s Addiction to Sweets

Dr. Ajay Mehta

Diploma in Child Health (DCH), MBBS

Pediatrician • 2 People helped • 17 Year experience

4 Sure-shot ways of breaking your child’s addiction to sweets

Here is a piece of truth: If your child has become increasingly addicted to sweets and other sugary items, this addiction can lead to certain behavioural problems (like mood swings, irritability, anger etc) in children.
Moreover, a high sugar intake can lead to your child falling prey to serious diseases and conditions, including diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular diseases.

Here’s what you can do to break your child’s indulgent habits and wean him from ill-health causing culprits like cakes, ice creams, candies, chocolates and rich and creamy desserts etc.

1. Practice what you preach
In order to develop healthy eating habits in your child, it is imperative for you as a parent to lead by example. When it comes to weaning your child from sugary foods and sweets, you yourself should limit your intake. So, if you tell your child to avoid sweets but love sweets yourself, you’d be setting a bad example by eating them yourself and not letting your child have them. The best thing to do is to be a role model to your child as children learn everything from their parents.

2. Curb consumption of sugar by deferring intake to a later date
Instead of depriving your child completely, it would prove to be more useful to tell them that they could have sweets on some other day. This is because if you deny him his indulgence, your child would invariably go on an eating spree the moment an opportunity arises. A study on a group of restrained eaters and non-diet individuals revealed that restrained eaters were found to consume more food than the non-dieting individuals. Not knowing when they could have their favourite foods again, they went on an eating spree.
Make frequent yet small offerings of sweets while explaining to him the importance of moderation and why he/she shouldn't overindulge but space out sugar intake.

3. Try the 90/10 rule
Teaching older children the 90/10 principle is another sure-shot way of breaking your child’s addiction to sweets. The rule calls for 90% of the diet to be made up of healthy food with the remaining 10% being devoted to foods your child wants to indulge in such as junk food, sweets or foods with high sugar content. The total calorie intake that arises from consumption of about 10% or 1-2 fun foods is only about 100-200 calories everyday.

4. Present your child with healthy alternatives to sugary items
The next time your child wants to indulge in his sugar craving, instead of giving a processed sugary food, give healthier sweet foods like dates, honey or a fresh sweet fruit.


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