Humans that often try to replace a drug related habit with something else find sweets in the form of cakes, cookies and gum to be a good replacement. The question here is if they are as good replacement if one becomes fat or should one turn to something nourishing such as fruit?
I think that this practice cannot be healthy. Trading one bad habit for another? The only difference is what part of your body is being harmed and the legality of it all. Gum though seems like a suitable replacement to me. That at least would not be bad for you and would still assist in curbing the oral fixation. Gum is a good way to stop smoking too.
Fear of fat is no excuse to wait to quit drugs. If sweets work for you, go ahead. Drugs are far more dangerous than cholesterol, and once the drug habit is broken, the willpower required to lose the weight will seem like very little in comparison with giving up far more addictive and harmful substances.
Fear of fat is not the only reason to avoid sweets. Too much sugar in the diet can cause all kinds of disastrous side effects. As my mother and I have discovered since she was diagnosed with diabetes, sugar affects every system in the body. White refined sugar is deadly, given time and sufficient quantity.
There are plenty of healthy alternatives to sweets, and it doesn't take much effort to find them.