Sugar and Your Child’s Health
Is sugar REALLY that bad for your kid? What’s the harm?
Some years ago, as a Mom of two elementary - age kiddos & a new Human Nutrition student, I had to take a hard look at how sugar specifically was affecting my children. From their behavior to their sleep patterns to what seemed like an endless stream of roller-coaster emotions and consistent health issues, I had to explore what we were ingesting and how it may be affecting all of these things. But where should I start? The amount of information was overwhelming, to say the least, and I had only just begun my journey into the science of nutrition. It was like drinking from a water hose of information.
So I decided to tackle one thing at a time, one baby step toward a healthier diet for our entire family. I began looking at our overall sugar intake… and what I found shocked me.
Much of the information I came across was outdated and inconclusive, which added to my overall feeling of frustration & confusion. Keeping true to my commitment to “ keep it simple” I pressed forward in my research and tried a home experiment.
Inspired by my meal planning and nutrition background, I decided to just examine how much sugar my then 5- and 8-year-olds were ingesting a day. They had the typical picky eater syndrome (very common for kid eaters) and had their food preferences. I mean, how many fish-shaped crackers and Yogurt tubes can one kid ingest in a day? Turns out, a lot!
However, there was one evidence-based nutrition fact I held on to:
the body does not register 5 grams of sugar or less.
That’s right! No glucose response at all. The way I viewed it was that I could begin looking at nutrition labels and staying as close to 5 grams as possible with all added sugars. That was an attainable, small goal.
According to the American Heart Association (AHA), “the maximum amount of added sugars that should be consumed per day is 25 grams or roughly 6 teaspoons per day for ages 2 to 18 years.” So much of our neurobiology (that is our brain & nervous system health and composition) is tied to what we consume. When children (and adults) eat sugar, it creates a reaction in the body and the brain releases dopamine, a feel-good chemical that can improve mood in the short term, and simultaneously the body produces insulin which regulates blood sugar levels.
Food serves as fuel at the primal level, but too much of anything can be hard on our kiddos’ little systems. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, (AAP) pediatricians are seeing markers for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, higher obesity rates, and heart disease earlier in children. Most blame the American diet.
Now let’s get back to that “home experiment” I tried. It turns out that in one yogurt tube, there were a whopping 24 grams of added sugar alone! This has since been revamped to lower levels, but holy cow, I allowed 2 to 3 of those a day! When I began to add other fish-shaped snacks and crackers and sweet treats after dinner, I calculated that my kids were consuming nearly triple the recommended intake. “Mom fail,” I thought. No wonder my kids were so up and down all day.
Rather than shame myself, I became more determined than ever to set my kids up to make healthy food choices in the future. I dropped the “sugar cop” mentality and redirected, slowly but surely, my family to make different choices.
Within 6 months, we were choosing things like pineapple over ice cream, Greek yogurt with fresh strawberries over yogurt tubes, and organic low-sugar cereals over their sugar-filled counterparts. Just focusing on this ONE thing this ONE change helped us adopt a lower sugar lifestyle. With very few food battles, I might add. You see, when we reframe and give choices it makes all the difference and THAT is an overall win on the war of wills.
I encourage you to start small and start somewhere. Children are always watching, learning, and mimicking behavior from their environment. My experience is that a family team works together to support one another and sets the entire family up for greater success in all areas of life. So good luck and best wishes on getting that WIN!
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WRITTEN BY KRISTIEN HATCHETT, PRACTICE MANAGER (SHE/HER/HERS)
Kristien has a diverse background in project & office management, ministry and coaching. She graduated from Texas State University with a B.S. in Human Nutrition and Business Management. She grew up in Austin, TX but has lived in Buda, TX raising her 2 amazing kids with her wonderful husband for more than a decade. She enjoys learning, team sports, travel and spending time with her family & friends.
