Parenting
Cookies, brownies and cakes don’t have to wait at mom Caitlin Kiarie’s house.
Sweets get a front-row seat alongside the veggies, starches and meats she serves her brood of three each night.
“Giving my kids dessert with their dinner normalizes dessert,” Kiarie, 40, a registered dietician from Montclair, New Jersey, told The Post. “Sweets are not something kids should believe they have to ‘earn’ as a ‘special treat’ for finishing their meals.”
And while the concept of serving tots goodies alongside their grub might sound nuts to some, it’s cracking among anti-“almond moms” online.
As Kiarie asserts: “Desserts are just food.”
Shunning the toxic diet-culture norms of the 1980s, ’90s and early aughts — which included enforcing extreme food restrictions on children — modish moms of Gen Alphas and Gen Zs are now creatively incorporating confections into their kids’ everyday lives.
The seemingly topsy-turvy trend is meant to gear youngsters toward developing healthy relationships with all foods, rather than singling out sugary snacks as strictly “off-limits.”
And NYU Langone pediatrician Dr. Sara Siddiqui tells The Post the movement may have some merit.
“Avoiding all sweets with a restrictive diet is detrimental,” said the doc, adding that the occasional hunk of junk with an entrée can’t hurt. “Avoidance and restriction may lead to binge-type eating well into adolescence and adulthood, along with disordered-type eating.”
Siddiqui, however, cautions folks against becoming too lenient with the lollies.
“As a pediatrician and a parent, I recommend a well-balanced diet filled with fruits, vegetables, protein and complex and simple carbohydrates with some dairy and water,” she said.
Sarah Jessica Parker gives her daughters all that and them some.
“In our house, we have cookies, we have cake, we have everything,” said the “And Just Like That” star, 59, during a recent podcast appearance.
The VIP mom of three, who was barred from enjoying treats growing up, wants better for twins Tabitha and Marion, 14, whom she shares with husband and actor Matthew Broderick.
“I didn’t want them to have a relationship with food that was antagonistic … like [it] was their enemy,” said Parker. “My daughters will have the figures they have and hopefully they’ll be healthy … and enjoy food.”
Hoping the same for her tribe of three, Maryland mom Bekah Groop, 31, tells The Post that anytime is pastry time at her house — even during the most important meal of the day.
“Serving dessert with breakfast has been a game-changer for my kids,” said the lifestyle content creator.
Since the eldest child, 5-year-old Sloane, was a toddler, Groop’s sporadically swapped out toast for a cupcake or a stack of flapjacks for cookies when making morning spreads.
She says the yummy misrule de-stigmatizes dessert as “the devil” — a grim belief she held as a child.
“Because my kids get treats with breakfast or dinner a few times a week, they don’t have sugar on some pedestal in their minds,” said Groop, a recovering disordered eater.
“They’re not secretly binging or desperately waiting for Halloween or their birthdays to over-indulge on candy,” she continued. “It’s just not a big deal.”
And much to mommy’s delight, when her bunch sees sweets side-by-side with proteins and produce, the focus isn’t solely on the cannoli.
“My kids eat all of their food,” Groop said. “There have been times the dessert only gets half eaten because they’re enjoying everything else.
“Sometimes they don’t even want dessert because it’s such a normal thing.”
Load more…
{{#isDisplay}}
{{/isDisplay}}{{#isAniviewVideo}}
{{/isAniviewVideo}}{{#isSRVideo}}
{{/isSRVideo}}
