Sugar and Kids

Halloween CandyI believe that sugar is the equivalent of crack for kids. Last Thanksgiving, my extended family and I were about ready to eat our traditional pumpkin pie for dessert after the meal. Someone brought out a can of whipped cream and my cousin proceeded to give 4 or 5 whippits directly into the mouth of her 2-year-old son, then acted surprised when he went into a frenzy yelling screaming around the living room.

We have a friend with two children under five. Their toddler eats very little sugar and has an organic diet of all whole foods. Unless he hasn’t has a nap, he is the calmest kid of this age I’ve ever seen. I’m just waiting for him to be claimed as a Llama. That all changed last Halloween as he got a taste of what a sugar high can do and turned his couch into a climbing wall and ruined the viewing of The Great Pumpkin for the rest of us.

Noting the change, I decided to do a little investigative reporting on the matter, aka Google searching. This article mentions several studies (although not by name) claiming that sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children. Instead, it is believed that any hyper behavior is caused by raising blood-sugar levels and the subsequent leveling out of the blood-sugar levels, which causes the kids to want more sugar. Monitoring sugar intake means also keeping track of the amount of fruit juice your child has. Less than six ounces a day is recommended for kids ages one to six.

I checked out other sites who said that children who were on diets with or without sugar acted roughly the same as their sugar-eating playmates. Again, I have to wonder who was conducting the studies and how they were paid for because my own own personal observations tell me otherwise. Was one of the studies perhaps conducted by the makers of Cocoa Puffs? It’s like the tobacco industry saying that nicotine was not carcinogenic- you have to consider the source. Also, does it really matter if the hyperactivity is a direct effect of the sugar or if it is due to the blood sugar levels if the cause and effect are the same?

What does this mean for Halloween? You might want to limit the amount of sugar your kids have per day to keep them on a more even keel after the holiday.

I’m far from the only one to notice a connection between diet and behavior. The famed cook Jamie Oliver is going to bring a film version of his show on healthy school dinners to the United States in an attempt to encourage healthier diets here as well. Feeding children healthier diets and avoiding sugar will help alleviate some of their sugar cravings in the future and hopefully lower our obesity rate.