Donuts for Breakfast

My parents are visiting for Thanksgiving. For my daughter this means lots of time with grandma and grandpa, including sleepovers at their hotel. For my son this means donuts for breakfast. My parents stay at a hotel that serves a full breakfast buffet every morning. They have a wide variety of healthy choices inclucing oatmeal, fresh fruit, yogurt , eggs, whole wheat breads, and low sugar cereals. They also have an even wider variety of fun foods, including make your own fresh waffles (whip cream is available), white flour muffins, bread, and bagels, sausage, gravy, biscuits, high sugar cereals and donuts.

I do not buy donuts for my family. I try to avoid 100% white flour products and only buy cereals with less than 7 grams of sugar per serving (about 1.5 tsp.). So my son looks forward to his breakfast with his granparents. This year, at age 7, he ate 2 donuts and 1 or 2 bowls of Fruitloops for breakfast on two separate mornings, washed down with apple juice (another food I don't buy). I painfully witnessed his joy.

I am pained as I know that these fat and sugar laden donuts, completely devoid of any nutrients, are clogging his arteries. But you should see the look of pure joy on his face as my son eats his donuts. I have not seen a food give him so much pleasure since he was breast fed. My son loves me (maybe it was the breastmilk). He associates his grandparents with, among other adventures, donuts. And from an emotional standpoint this seems fine to me. My son will always have great memories of his grandparents. Who am I, a Registered Dietitian specializing in the nutrition of babies and children, to get in the way of this love?

Luckily we only eat breakfast at the hotel a couple of times a year.