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| Yes | 84% | 780 votes | Total: 930 votes | |
| No | 16% | 150 votes |
Yes
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Add to FavoritesWho doesn't like chocolate? Adults and children like it equally and Easter is surely a good occasion to eat it more than usual; it's not a great problem for some days for a normal person, but it becomes heavy for our health and weight if we eat it too much all the year.
Chocolate contains a lot of saturated vegetable fats, the cocoa butter. The "cocoa paste" is directly obtained from the seeds, toasted at about 120 C, when the final product is milk chocolate and up to 180 C, when fondant chocolate must be obtained. Then, the seeds are crushed and form the paste, semi-fluid for their high content of fat (about 40-54%); the fondant chocolate used for many Easter eggs and tablets is just solidified cocoa paste, often with sugar added.
When sugar (until the 50% of the final product) and powdered milk are added to the paste, here it is the milk chocolate, usual presence in many snacks and tablets for Easter and for the whole year.
When the cocoa undergoes a partial extraction of fats by pressure, we obtain the "cocoa powder", with a content of fats between 5-10% and 25% that makes it still very nutritious and rich in fats. Note that it is in the form of powder just for its minor fat content. Also the cocoa powder is very used, mainly, for sweets and cakes.
From this short description, it's clear that exaggerating with chocolate can be dangerous for children's health because they can grow fat also after a limited period of great consumption, especially, if they have a sedentary life-style at school, studying at home, sitting down in front of a PC or the TV, using the Play-station and so on. This can be the beginning of the road for obesity because, after the feast, it's difficult that chocolate can be "banned" from a child's life.
Another problem created by chocolate in excess is its irritating effect on liver, given its high content of fats that makes work hard this organ. The main long-term risk in case of prolonged excess in eating chocolate is the steatosis, an irreversible degeneration of the liver tissue occurring when the excess of fats is retained and not metabolized anymore and liver cells die replaced by the fat in excess.
So, children would be limited also during Easter, but not with great severity, above all, if they make sport, for which chocolate is an excellent source of energy and a mild stimulant for its alkaloids (theobromine, caffeine the most important). Differently, if your children are sedentary, limits should be imposed also during Easter because they are totally unable to limit themselves for things like this, especially during a feast like this, when all the mass-media are full of invitations to "eat & consume" chocolate and all the foods containing it and the temptation is nearly irresistible.
This limit on chocolate must be tailor-made on the child lifestyle, so that an obese child is allowed to eat only some low-fat chocolate products with not more than 10-15% of fat, otherwise, feast after feast, your child tends to become more and more similar to a fat ball and obesity becomes nearly irreversible for the rest of his/her life, as many nutrition studies have shown about obesity from childhood.
Let's not forget that chocolate is not the only food with which children risk to exaggerate. Its fat must be added to that of meat-based products, cheese, cream and eggs that, differently from chocolate, contain cholesterol too.
The most "dangerous" product for children's diet is milk chocolate because particularly nutrient;
as reported above, it contains also a great amount of sucrose that can be turned into fat. I think a good way to give your children chocolate without building up their obesity, for not having the courage to tell them "NO", at Easter like in the other periods of the year, could be giving it only after they come back home from a long walk, a tour by their bike, after having gone to play soccer, basket or after a good swim or skating, only to make some common examples. So, you can be sure that also a good amount of chocolate everyday will not be dangerous for your children's weight and health.
Learn more about this author, Aldo Bonincontro.
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No
Children today are just lucky to have all the chocolates they want to eat. But when I was a little girl I haven't tasted chocolate at all in my entire childhood, this is because I don't live in America or Europe or Australia. I lived in the remotest mountains in the Philippines and candies and chocolates were rare in the stores in those olden days. If we bought candies we were told that we will have toothache. It was hard watching other children eating candies and not being able to have one.
Children love candies and chocolates although this has disadvantages because these foods are not very healthy and they ruin the appetite of children to eat their regular meal. But what we have to bear in mind is that Easter comes only once a year and children have those heaps of candies and chocolates only once a year. Just imagine your child with that basket and here he comes with the basket all loaded with every kind of sweets and you tell your child not to eat what he brought home because he might have stomach ache or tooth ache or his appetite might be ruined. Can the child accept those reasons not to eat what he had worked for? Surely, you wouldn't allow your child to be heart-broken because of things brought about only by your assumptions.
Chocolat es are not harmful and since this occasion comes only once in a year, why not let your children enjoy their candies and chocolates with gusto and eat as much as they can eat? If they have enough they would stop. It would be impossible for children to finish all the sweets that they have in their basket. Children once they have enough would stop eating and you will find out that they had enjoyed the occasion without your interference. Allow your children to experience the Easter with excitement and with all the chocolates they want to have. After all, Easter is not an everyday occasion and tomorrow would be another day for the children to have other activities in mind. The most important thing there is that your children have made the best of their Easter.
Children do not always collect candies and chocolates in order to eat them. They just enjoy the fun with all the other children. Those chocolates would not be a problem at all. Let them have all the chocolates they wish to have because the next day is another day and chocolates will not be that much.
A day of too much chocolate will not affect the health of your child. But if you restrict them and limit them with the amount of chocolate they would eat on Easter, you would be affecting them emotionally. It is cruel to tell your children to stop eating too much chocolate if they are enjoying their time munching those sweets. So, think twice before telling your kids to stop. They will stop anyway if they have enough.
Learn more about this author, Felisa Daskeo.
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