I've read a lot of posts lately where people say that they just can't bring themselves to take sugar and highly processed carbs away from their kids because they feel that they will be depriving them of something. Maybe I'm thinking wrong, but I don't feel like I'm depriving my kids of anything (except perhaps a lifetime of bad health) by not letting them eat all the sugar and junk food that they want whether they are thin or not. Yes, kids will feel deprived and restricted when they see their friends gobbling down twinkies and ding dongs at lunchtime and they have cheese, yogurt and nuts, but I'd rather that they feel deprived now than develop adult onset diabetes as teenagers because I wasn't a strong enough parent to stand my ground when they were young and tell them, "No, you can't eat that...it's bad for you". My compromise has been to allow them one regular sugar treat a week...usually ice cream on Friday after school. The rest of the time we go sugar free and as unprocessed as possible and I think their health and behavior is much better because of it. What do the rest of you think?

with you wholeheartedly. we know sugar and highly processed carbs are poison. many have suffered for years with various ailments because of them. why would we subject our children to all of that. starting very early children can learn good eating habits, its up to us the adults to teach them to stay away from these poisons just as we would anything else that will harm them.

The only real worry I have about taking away *all* processed sugar & sweet for good is that when they get older they may "rebound" and sneek candy and junk food in excessive amounts... because they were never allowed to have it or learned to eat it responsibly.

Lisa, I think you have come up with a really *great* compromise and I will probably do something like it as my son gets older!

If it's a "have a cookie and stop crying" or "eat all your dinner or you won't get dessert" sort of thing then you're setting them up for a lifetime of addiction.

Think back. How did we get to where we are now? Why not let four year olds smoke now, so they'll smoke less later?

No one knows who will succumb to the addictive grip of sugar. It's a dangerous drug. It has no nutritional value. It's the cheapest and most accesible "high" around. Eating habits start early in life. How many people need a coffee and a sweet - maybe many times a day - to get them through the day?

Later in life, it becomes their choice. Not feeding it to them on a daily basis will certainly help to lessen the chances of it becoming a dependancy.

Karen

sure, you're depriving them, of....sugar.

It's kinda like depriving them of marijuana or wine. Relative innocuous drugs, all, I suppose, and in some families and cultures children have wine or smoke pot, but no child really needs that (or sugar). If you yourself have been addicted to sugar (or alcohol or pot, for that matter), it seems that your children have a higher, not lower, chance of similar addiction, so why not eliminate the substance and perhaps give them a better chance of not getting addicted? Children have no more shot at rebelling against the absence of sugar by overindulgence than they do reacting against the absence of wine by overindulging later.

Consider yourself lucky.... my children live with their father during the week and I have no CONTROL over what they eat except on the weekends! Talk about 'pushing a rope'!!! I try my hardest to just educate them so that they will make the right choices on their own.... to an 8 yr old sugar addict, this is asking a LOT! But I educate them the best way I can.....and sit back and watch while my kids go through all the same things I did. Heartbreaking!

Have I talked to my ex about these issues? Yes, until I'm purple. Does he seem to care? Yes. Does he do anything about it? No.

I know I don't have all the answers, but I didn't say "let's load em up on sugar now so they won't later". I said if you take away "all" treats then they "may" rebel when they are older and have plenty of access to it or when you are not around to stop them. I do not believe in giving food as a reward.. or denying food as punishment.. this is how many people start out with food issues that plague them for the rest of their lives. The difference between eating poorly and smoking pot or drinking booze should be obvious, while they are equally bad for you... eating food (even junk) is totally acceptable and even expected by peers. Heck, even the mothers of friends may serve pizza or cookies and milk at a sleepover.

Also most kids go thru a phase where they want to be "the same" as everyone else.. unless our society changes drastically, it will be "normal" for other kids to get candy at holidays, eat junk at Mcdonald's, go on dates at pizza joints, etc. I am *not* saying to just let them have all the junk. I am not even sure of the best answer for us will be yet (I have a toddler), but I am trying to keep in mind that while they are not actually being deprived that doesn't mean that they will not "feel" deprived... and possibly sneak around to be like everyone else. I think I want to try to teach my son to eat all foods responsibly and certain foods in moderation. I am hopeful that because we don't have carbs and sugar constantly available during our everyday life our son will not grow up addicted to carbs.

My mom (who is *highly* addicted to sugar, won't even do low carb because of all she must give up) has told me a true story. I am not saying we should all do as the mother of these children did! LOL! but it is definately "food" for thought.

Mom was dirt poor growing up and they almost *never* got candy, maybe a few pieces of chocolate at Christmas. As a teen she became a nanny for 5 children during the summer for a wealthy family... this family had bowls of hard candy and boxes of expensive chocolates sitting around all the time. Mom asked if she could have some and was told "of course". Well one night mom binged and ate almost an entire 5 lb box of candy.. she was very upset and apologized profusely for it. The woman she worked for didn't mind at all and just put out another box. Mom asked why her children didn't just gobble all the candy and the woman replied "why should they.. they know it is here if they want some". Mom remembers that the kids were rather indifferent to candy.. even the 4 yr old. Oh, they occasionally got a piece or two, but they never gorged themselves.

My mother has met several of these children now that they are grown, they are successful, happy, and do not have a weight problem (though she cannot know whether they eat well). It seems ironic that my mom.. the one that never got any candy, is the one who is overweight, has major food issues, and is highly addicted to sugar.

Intersting point, Sunni.

I think a lot people gorge themselves on foods that were "forbidden" as they were growing up because of what they may or may not associate with that particular food or type of food. Or perhaps because of rebellion against the reason that they were denied a particular food. If you associate a type of food with comfort (hence the term "comfort food"), you will want that type of food when you are feeling in need of comfort. I know that this is sneaky, but I recently told one of my daughters that I believe that she may be allergic to sugar. That may be stretching the truth a bit, but she certainly has a sensitivity to it judging by her behavior when she eats it. Since she has other allergies, this made sense to her and hopefully it will help her make better choices when I'm not around to supervise what she eats. It may also help other people respect her boundaries when she tells them "no, thank you, I can't eat that" and not insist that a little won't hurt. I have yet to see an adult insist that a child eat nuts once they were told the child was allergic to them. I also believe that if we teach our kids to eat properly and also explain to them why it's important or why they must eat a certain way, they are a lot more likely to comply with it when you are not around. Instead of just telling them to do it, explain why. Kids also tend to follow the example that they are shown. If you model good eating habits, they are a lot more likely to follow them than if you tell them one thing and do something else.

For years (way before my newly acquired knowlege of our LC WOE) I felt guilty for feeding my kids the high carb/high sugar foods, but would always use it as a "comfort." A job well done was rewarded with soda, ice cream, candy bars. And then to think of our yearly camping trips....man oh man...."did we get the tent, the rafts and how about the carbs??? Did we get those packed dear??" What a mess.

Now my boys are 15, 16 and 17 and since my husband and I have changed over to LC, so have the boys. I am very proud of them. As a matter of fact...they went to the midnight showing of the new 'Star Wars' movie last night and only had bottled water. I was so proud of them because they made that decision on their own. They have seen the results of what this new WOE can do and are excited by that.

I appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts and ideas here...it really keeps me pumped up!

I don't have any kids of my own, but hey, we were all kids once? I don't want to overstate this, but I agree with razzle's point. Would you be quite so hesitant to deprive your children of cocaine? I think not.

Course, your answer to that is that cocaine is definitely bad for them, whereas sugar is only questionably bad. But let's take this further. Will an anti-drug attitude help to prevent your children grow into addicts? With any luck it will, but it might not, because when they grow up, they make their own choices. Is the occasional snort of white lines likely to kill your children? Probably not. Well, at least not straight away, anyway, unless they happen to be on monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which is unlikely if you don't know about it. But saying that is not the same thing as encouraging it. Much the same thing applies to sugar (except for the MAO inhibitor bit of it).

So, I for one think you're doing the right thing by bringing up your children on a low carb diet. Not quite sure what to make of sunni's post yet, though.

Hi,

I'm a newbie to these forums - but I had a thought to share

Over the last few months I've moved over to much healthier living and feel 100% better for it! I started this process because I wanted to decrease my chronic weekly migraine attacks - and ended up getting that and much more!

I've only just begun (2 days) Atkins low-carbing diet.

What I do with my son (who is 15 months old) is offer him protein with each meal or snack, and give him high-carb foods, but non-refined sugar treats. He usually has a balanced meal 3x a day & 2-3 snacks with soy milk. I make Pamela's brownies that contain brown rice syrup, and both my son and I eat Trurtle Mountain's soy frozen dessert (which is fruit sweetened.) And yes these items contain carbs - but not huge amounts - one serving (1/2 cup) of soy frozen dessert has 5g Fat, 25g carbs (13g sugar) and 3g protein.

IMO we all need some level of "sugars," or carbs that are turned into glucose - sugar in all forms is not the enemy (IMO of course.) My son is 15 months old, very tall and thin and actually has no baby fat left . . . if I fed him LC he would not thrive - he doesn't have enough fat stores to deal with low-carbing.

What I offer him now is as much whole foods, nutritional and typically organic as he will eat. The sweets (and other foods) I share with him have good nutritional value, are completely devoid of refined sugars in any form, and most certainly contain a balanced amount of carbs.

I just want to say that I am new to the whole world of LCing, but I think I am making good health decisions for my whole family, by allowing healthy sweets and completely avoiding processed-high refined sugar foods.

Cheers,

Hi Monica!

I don't think we were talking about putting VERY young children on a low carb diet, but rather about not giving them refined sugar snacks. Very young (under the age of 3) children should not be on a low fat diet either...they NEED that fat for healthy brain development. I hate to burst your bubble on the frozen soy dessert, but 1/2 cup of Hagen Dazs vanilla ice cream has 5 grams of protein and 21 grams of carb (less than the soy dessert) so unless your son has a lactose intolerance, the Hagen Dazs would actually be a better choice. I did a lot of reading while I was on vacation this past week and have decided that my almost 8 year old daughter really needs to cut back on her carbs dramatically. She's been suffering from a lot of health problems, mostly repeated infections, which I strongly believe are directly related to the amount of high carb foods that she has been eating. She's also starting to show early signs of insulin resistance. As far as needing some level of carbs, I can't say that I agree that we need carbs. There are essential fats, essential proteins and even essential vitamins and minerals, but there are no essential carbs. They're an easy energy source for our bodies, to be sure, but the body can function and grow quite nicely without them and over time they can cause far more damage than good. Having said that, we DO need the vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals found in vegetables so it would be unwise and unhealthy to cut out those sources of carbs (not because we need the carbs, but because we need what comes with them). It's also a good idea to eat your carbs with a protein to minimize their impact on insulin production. I think you're doing fine with your son. He's far too young for you to worry about anything but teaching him good habits with eating and how to make good choices.

I just had a co-worker ask me about sugar and diabetes, especially in children. Evidently he is conserned that his 2 year old is being given too much cookies, candy and ice cream by his wife. Other than just saying it isn't good for him, do any of you have any articles or studies that indicate bad sugar habits in kids can lead to diabetes/overweight etc in adults.

Much appreciated!

Hi Talon!

I'd suggest that he pick up a copy of "Sugar Busters For Kids". As far as studies, I can't quote any right off, but medical journals are reporting that children as young as 10 are now developing type 2 diabetes; something virtually unheard of 20 years ago and your co-worker is quite right to be concerned about his young son receiving a lot of cookies, candy and ice cream. At the very least, his mother is teaching him some very bad eating habits and at the worst, she could be setting him up for a lifetime of obesity and health problems. There is absolutely no dietary value for sugar...none at all, so why fill him up on sugar when he could be eating yogurt, cheese and fruits which are far more filling and healthy.