I wish I had been less uptight about junk food when my kids were little. Oh, sure, there are powerful reasons to avoid having junk around the house. For one thing, it's everywhere else. Junk food is to children's advertising what sex is to advertising for adults. Pervasive pitches persuade them life's no fun without a bowl of chips, a cache of chocolate bars and a soda the size of Rhode Island.
Junk food's the menu at any children's gathering.
It's what to get at a ballgame or a movie. Almost every holiday demands the stuff. Halloween means bottomless bags of every candy known to man or goblin. Easter baskets bring it bedside. Not to mention birthday cakes and ice cream.