Should Chocolate be Limited for Children – Yes
Should a child’s chocolate intake be limited? Yes. Is allowing your children to have chocolate bad? Not at all. A parent is responsible for teaching their child how to make responsible decisions and making those decisions for them when they are not mature enough to make the decision themselves. While it may be nice to spoil a child every once in a while and allow them to indulge on chocolate, this should never become an everyday practice.
Before birth, parents begin shaping their child’s eating habits when they heavily weigh the pros and cons of breastfeeding verses formula. Throughout a child’s life there are many of these decisions that have to be considered. The bottom line is eating habits are just that, habits. They are carried with a child through life and incredibly hard to change once established.
Chocolate, in moderation, has many health benefits. It can lower blood pressure, help slow aging and even help improve a person’s mood. However, when a person over indulges they can become overweight or even obese, have problems with their dental health and get stomach aches. A child is not able to see these consequences to eating chocolate.
They look at that melt-in-your-mouth treat as nothing more or less than a good taste. Children are not capable of the thought process required to decide when they have had enough chocolate. It still tastes good, no matter how many pieces they have had, and they still want to eat it. A child doesn’t see obesity, heart-disease and cavities.
Limiting the amount of chocolate a child has teaches them about moderation. They learn that chocolate is a treat and not an everyday staple. Moderation and self-control are crucial to the development of a child and this goes beyond eating habits. The saying “everything in moderation” comes to mind.
There is a balance to life and restraint is necessary to achieve this balance. A parent needs to enforce this restraint in their child’s life. Work, play, sleeping and eating all need to be balanced so that a child learns to handle the responsibility of creating a healthy equilibrium in their life. While monitoring their chocolate alone will not establish this practice, it is an important step in the process.
Appreciation is another quality a child learns from a limited supply of chocolate. A child that is allowed to eat all the chocolate they want does not get the same joy from an Easter basket than a child who only gets chocolate for special occasions. Without moderation, it isn’t special.
Chocolate is not bad, it is just a substance that can be abused and become bad. By limiting the amount of chocolate a child has, you are helping teach your child healthy eating habits, self-control and appreciation. This doesn’t mean that you can’t let your child indulge on Halloween or when they visit their grandparents. It just means that everyday shouldn’t be indulgent.
