I am not a perfect mom, I allow my daughter to eat junk food!

My daughter loves eating chocolates, chips, cakes, donuts and ice-creams, like any kid of her age. But they are all junk food with little nutritional value. When I think about all this, I feel it would be nice for my daughters to live in little bubbles, filled with only healthy food - fruits, vegetables, dal-roti and oats and far away from this junk and unhealthy food. But the fact is that we live in the real world, where junk food exists! So we have to teach our kids how to deal with it. They should know their limits and should be able to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy food.;;

What kind of food do we consider as junk food? Junk food is food that is high in fat, sugar or salt, and low in nutritional value. It sounds to be something really bad, but as always there are exceptions to it too. I feel, these junk foods which our kids call 'treats' are not harmful if consumed within limits.;

My husband and I allow my daughter to enjoy her share of junk food once or twice a week. We believe that prohibiting something completely from kids makes it more appealing to them. And once they grow up and start taking decisions themselves, we don't want them to feel they missed out on something.

Also, I feel treating these items like 'forbidden foods'; indirectly makes it highly desirable to children. Though we try our best to keep the kids away from eating junk food, but it turns out that this strategy can backfire the minute kids have access to these 'treats' at school, their friend's house or at a birthday party.

So, my husband and I decided that strict restriction of; 'junk food' would not be a part of how we raise our daughters. We wanted our kids to enjoy these little treats too. But that doesn't mean that my daughter eats only junk food. We ensure she eats all sorts of vegetables and fruits and gets complete nutrition at home. We try and keep her eating habits healthy while still allowing her some junk food.

For instance: Instead of providing no access to junk food, we allow some access, but avoid bringing large amount of these junk food at home. We have occasional moments when she has access to junk food. And the good part is this also keeps other people's junk food eating in check.

So healthy food habits are not just about health eating, it's also about healthy decision-making and choices.

How do you deal with junk food for your kids?