With terms such as “childhood obesity” and “diabetes” floating around everywhere, materializing in every parenting article we read, other terms such as “sweet tooth” become taboo. My daughter loves cookies, and jelly beans. She won’t eat apples unless they are sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. Like most children, she has a sweet tooth.Of course my husband and I are aware of the dangers of sweets. After all, we don’t want the baby teeth she just got in to rot out already, but in moderation I can’t imagine things being as malevolent as some people would have you believe. My mother is one such person.

We were sitting on the couch the other day and my daughter started fussing for a snack. I gave her Gerber Graduates cinnamon maple Crunchies. In our house we call them “cookies.” The term was enough to send my mother on a tirade essentially boiling down to the unhealthy foods I allow my daughter to eat.

First of all, these are not really cookies. Second, if anything is unhealthy in this situation, it is the desire or determination to raise a child completely devoid of cookies, or candies, or anything else deemed damaging. I am by no means condoning allowing a small child to eat anything they want without limitation, but the occasional snack seems innocuous enough.

In a society obsessed with fad diets restricting entire food groups, I am not amazed that sugars have now earned such a bad name as to be black listed. However, I am advocating letting children be children. Sure, monitor them, but don’t deprive them of some of the best things that I am sure you enjoyed as a child. Imagine growing up not knowing what cotton candy and bubble gum were. Imagine no ice cream. No trick or treating. No jelly beans. I think that is a lot more troubling.

How do you feel about your child’s eating habits?