The well-off in the United States suffer from at least two kinds of gluttony. One is from eating an overabundance of physical food. The other is from overindulging in social media. Protecting ourselves from overindulgence in either requires self discipline.

Particularly in raising our children, we are responsible for properly using what we and they consume in each case.

To eat a proper diet, of course, we know that a healthy diet has to include proper amounts of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and dairy products as well as guards against too many fatty meats and sweets and junk food.

As soon as we have our first candy bar as children, the race for a disciplined diet is on. For those of us blessed with enough money for food, a healthy diet is the result of disciplined choices, partly the discipline to refuse too many unhealthy foods.

Just as societies had to deal with food discipline as soon as affordable sugar became available to most of the population, so we must deal with the explosion of social media use with the development of the internet.

Boundary setting in the practices chosen by our family members in their use of social media is as important as boundary setting in our choice of foods. Good parenting requires the introduction and encouragement of both healthy foods and healthy habits regarding social media. The junk food kinds of social media should be as limited as candy bars.

We encourage healthy choices in food and in setting limits on junk food. So we also should encourage healthy choices in the amount of time we spend on social media.

Think of social media as dessert, not the main course.