The doctor assumes, as do a lot of people, that given access to sweets and savory snacks that her small patients will go out of control and eat way too much. In contrast, your strategy is to change sweets from being special (that she overeats) into being ordinary food (that she evolves into eating moderately).

sDOR: the practical, realistic,  junk food strategy

• Include high-calorie/low nutrient foods in scheduled meal- and snack-times.
• Within that context, children and other people may eat as much as they want.
• This is with the exception of the mealtime dessert strategy, which recommends giving only one serving.
• Once the food is included in the meal or snack, parents do not restrict in any way: not by managing portions, not by running out of food, not by giving the child the look.
• Have soda occasionally, with a meal or snack where it tastes especially good.

Children become relaxed about eating junk food

“My teens walk by chips and treats and leave half a dessert because they are full. Their body weight is normal.” In contrast, sixty percent of parents wait-listed for  obesity management say “I have to be careful that my child does not eat too much.”

The junk food strategy is not just for today – it is for a child’s lifetime. Kids who regularly get to eat as much as they want of high-calorie, low-nutrient foods become as relaxed and casual about eating them as they do other food. They don’t go off the deep end and eat a lot of junk food when they become older school-age children and adolescents and can get it on their own. Instead, they continue to be relaxed, positive, and competent with eating junk food the same as as they are with other food.

Research supports the sDOR based junk food strategy

The control perspective appears to be that children have a tendency to eat too much, particularly of high calorie food, and that that tendency has to be managed by food restriction, portion control, and/or strict limits on access to the junk foods in today’s “obesogenic” food environment. This is despite the fact that there is considerable evidence showing that restriction and avoidance don’t work and even do more harm than good. Consider the evidence: restriction backfires.

• Clinical observation indicates that unsupervised restricted children tend to overeat when forbidden foods are available, a tendency that leaves them ill-equipped to cope with the broader food environment.
• Restriction increases children’s enthusiasm for and intake of restricted food.²
• Such enthusiasm and intake is exacerbated when children show tendencies for high approach (positive anticipation) and low inhibitory control (ability to resist or delay gratification).²  That is, when children especially enjoy eating and find it hard to wait. 
• According to the Eating in the Absence of Hunger (EAH) research protocol, which monitors children’s after-a-filling-lunch intake of freely available snack foods, restricted children eat more and feel worse about their eating.³ That is, they are ashamed of eating what their parents don’t want them to eat.
• Girls deprived of palatable snack foods show relatively high EAH as well as increasing EAH from age 5 to 9 years, a tendency that is higher in “overweight.” girls.⁴
• In contrast, even girls who are given no structure at all, in that they are allowed unlimited access to all kinds of snacks, have moderate BMIs and lower EAH than those whose parents restrict. Restrictive parents control the what and when of eating and, in contrast to sDOR, also how much.
• Girls whose parents restrict high-fat, high-sugar snacks have relatively high BMI; those whose parents restrict all snacks show relatively high EAH.⁵

The sDOR junk food strategy works

The sDOR “forbidden food” strategy works. Be matter-of-fact about including high-calorie, low-nutrient foods in structured meals and snacks. Restrict mealtime dessert to a single helping; let children eat as much as they want at periodic snack-times. In the words of a parent on Facebook, “My teens walk by cupboards of chips and treats. They leave half a dessert unfinished because they are full. Their body weight is normal for them.” In contrast, sixty percent of parents enrolled and wait-listed in an obesity management intervention say “I have to be careful that my child does not eat too much.”⁶