shootingstar - that's interesting and totally opposite of what I saw with my best friend when we were kids. Did you live in a culture where no one had tons of sweets, or was your family unique?

I ask because I had a friend growing up who lived next door to us when we were around 10 years old. She was my best friend and both she and younger sister would have meals or sleepovers at our house all the time. Let me back up a bit...my parents didn't deny us anything in terms of food. We didn't really have 'rules' about food at my house, either. Basically, 1) you weren't allowed to say that you didn't like something until you'd as least tried it and 2) every meal had veggies. I grew up loving fruits and veggies even though we had things like sugar cereals, cookies, chips etc in the house. (We were not allowed Cheerios because my mother hated them and how they smelled, but anything else was 'game'). Those things are now no big deal to me. BUT, my friends who lived next door? Their parents were strict vegetarians and health food fanatics. They had NO sweets in their house, ever. They weren't even allowed things like pizza and no soda ever graced their lips. When I would hang out over there, we'd snack on frozen blueberries because that's all they had for 'snack foods'. Anyway, when these girls would come to our house, they'd go nuts. 3 and 4 servings of pancakes (if my mom made them) and they'd literally lick the syrup off the plate. They'd gobble up 3 or 4 hotdogs each if that what we had. They'd polish off bags of chips and if we asked what they wanted for breakfast, it was always 'cereal!' and they'd eat multiple bowls. My mother was afraid that they were starving!

Fast forward to college and they both blew up like balloons. I think that because everything was denied them (when they saw all their friends eating it), they never learned control. It was unreal.

But to me, these things were nothing special. I could eat them if I wanted them but they held no sense of 'specialness' or anything.

Even today, my problem isn't junk food as I can always take it or leave it. I'm way more likely to overeat sushi or pecans or oatmeal - all things that in moderation are considered 'healthy'.