Is sugar really that bad?
Options
Replies
-
Ps and no artificial sweeteners either
8 -
Context and dosage matter....drinking multiple 40oz Big Gulps daily while leading a sedentary lifestyle...probably pretty bad for you. Having a reasonable amount of sugar in an otherwise balanced and nutritious diet...not a big deal.
How much is too much is also going to be dependent on how active one is. My kids are extremely active so a little extra sugar is an easy way to get them more calories and a burst of energy. They don't eat a lot of "junk food", but they do eat a lot of fruit.
Things like gatorades and juices/sodas are typically reserved for after soccer matches and special occasions like when we're out camping...fruit snacks on the way home after practices usually, and we typically give them something sweet but small for desert after the evening meal. They're both skinny as rails.6 -
MikePfirrman wrote: »The issue I have with sugar and kids is that it does taste wonderful. Depends on the kid and the context. If a child understands (which is rare they do) that you should only eat sugary things occasionally and the parent controls what they eat, fine. The problem becomes when the child has more choices, like in school. Will they learn that they need to also eat their vegetables and protein?
I think the longer you keep your kids from eating sugar (and sweet juices) the better. Just my personal beliefs. Any parent that has fed a baby knows babies would rather eat Applesauce than Squash. I credit my wife a lot for being tough and teaching me as a parent how important those little things are. Once the parents give in to natural instincts for sweets, it becomes very hard as the child ages to curb their sweet tooth.
I agree with this. Kids don't need sugar and they are probably better of if they get their calories from other sources.
If they don't eat a lot of sugary foods, they won't be used to eating a lot of sugary foods. I'd rather they ate meats, cheeses and veggies than sugary cereal, flavoured fat free yogurts or juice.
I try not to keep many sugary items in the house. It simplifies what they can and can't eat on a daily basis unless they go spend their own money. When they do want sweet things it is fruit or non-sugar sweetened foods (ex. if my son wants yogurt he uses full fat plain yogurt and adds vanilla and flavored stevia drops - no added sugar = less sugar overall).
They still get sugar on occasion: Grandma makes them treats or on special occasions, but otherwise we skip it.13 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »Context and dosage matter....drinking multiple 40oz Big Gulps daily while leading a sedentary lifestyle...probably pretty bad for you. Having a reasonable amount of sugar in an otherwise balanced and nutritious diet...not a big deal.
How much is too much is also going to be dependent on how active one is. My kids are extremely active so a little extra sugar is an easy way to get them more calories and a burst of energy. They don't eat a lot of "junk food", but they do eat a lot of fruit.
Things like gatorades and juices/sodas are typically reserved for after soccer matches and special occasions like when we're out camping...fruit snacks on the way home after practices usually, and we typically give them something sweet but small for desert after the evening meal. They're both skinny as rails.
Sounds like when I was growing up. When we had dinner guests or went to family holidays we had soda to drink, otherwise it was juice with breakfast and milk with lunch and dinner. When Mom went shopping on Fridays, we each got 2 cans of soda (with our initials written on them) to have for the week. Except for special occasions like Halloween and Easter there was no such thing as unlimited sweets around the house. We could spend our allowance on sweets if we wanted to but it was usually a box of candy when we went to the movies or a soda and candy bar when we were at the beach (usually after biking a few miles to get there and playing in the water all afternoon).0 -
My house never had sweets either but I sure loaded up when I was away from home.9
-
They put sugar and salt in things because it tastes good. Example: on America’s Test Kitchen (may have been Cooks Country) Bridget taste tested almond butter. Bridget picked Jiff Almond butter with added sugar and salt. Last place Justin’s Almond Butter just almonds and palm oil.
The OP is a concerned parent looking to make good choices for her young child, which is as it should be. Making choices that will guide them to being healthy.
From my perspective, and I know there are others that will disagree, severely limiting a food, can lead to secretive eating for some of us, that may lead to lifelong issues with foods.
11 -
MikePfirrman wrote: »The issue I have with sugar and kids is that it does taste wonderful. Depends on the kid and the context. If a child understands (which is rare they do) that you should only eat sugary things occasionally and the parent controls what they eat, fine. The problem becomes when the child has more choices, like in school. Will they learn that they need to also eat their vegetables and protein?
I think the longer you keep your kids from eating sugar (and sweet juices) the better. Just my personal beliefs. Any parent that has fed a baby knows babies would rather eat Applesauce than Squash. I credit my wife a lot for being tough and teaching me as a parent how important those little things are. Once the parents give in to natural instincts for sweets, it becomes very hard as the child ages to curb their sweet tooth.
The only thing more fun than a sugar thread is a thread about what people feed their kids!!!!
My kids may be the exception - I've never specifically limited their sugar intake and we always have sweets in the house. We have sugary and non sugary cereal, granola bars, pop tarts... sometimes they eat those and sometimes they ask for things like butter toast or eggs/bacon for breakfast. They eat fruit with both lunch and dinner. They eat flavored yogurt sometimes, maybe once a week. For treats, they ask if they can have dessert a couple of times a week, most of the time they never even ask. When they do ask, it's usually like "one girl scout cookie" or a fun sized candy bar from our Halloween stash. They never ask for more than what they initially get.
They drink milk or water for ~95% of their meals, on weekends we occasionally do soda, or they have gatorade after games - but often when they have soda with dinner they don't have dessert. When we are out in public, if there is candy or sweets available, like at a party, they still ask first before they start eating. We were at a birthday party on Sunday with a Pinata and after the candy finally all was gathered up and kids had filled their bags - most kids were shoving it in their faces - mine both said, "can I eat one piece now?". I said sure, and then also when the cake was served, both of mine ate about half a piece and threw the rest away.
This is not just because I was there either - I've dropped my kids off at parties, or over at play dates, and been told by other parents how politely my kids asked before they ate any of the sweets - this isn't something I really staunchly enforced it's just what we've always said, "ask before you eat it". On the other side - when I've hosted play dates or a recent sleepover, I was shocked at how some of the other kids just are constantly angling for sweets or when they can have their soda, if they can have a refill, how many refills, when will we have dessert, can we have donuts and pancakes for breakfast, etc. When I commented to one of those kids recently about how much of a sweet tooth he had and how eager he was for the treats, he said "well yeah, because my mom won't ever let us eat any of this stuff we only are allowed to have it outside of the house so I go crazy for sugar any time I'm somewhere else".... my 10 year old just looked at me and shrugged, and threw his half eaten s'more away.
So I'm not sure I agree that it's best to keep sweets away from kids as long as possible, it may end up backfiring into over indulgence and secret eating when a parent is not around...18 -
I’m completely agree winogelato I want food to be quite neutral as in sweets are nice to have sometimes but they are not there to reward good behaviour or make up for disappointment, I really want my daughter to have a healthy relationship with food - I do believe habits are easier to change than attitude.6
-
I wish my parents had kept more sweets around the house. They were staunchly against sugar and the hyperactivity of children which it allegedly caused. Sometimes as a treat we had Honey Nut Cheerios or graham crackers. Even fruit and juice were pretty limited. I was probably in high school before I had a "real" Coke. Most sweets came from my grandparents or other kids' houses. For me, that ended in a year-long sugar binge my first year in college. I was up to my ears in a bowl of Fruity Pebbles before my dad had left the dorm parking lot! I won't even go into the endless delights of the unlimited buffets at the dining hall! I'd guess I gained 10 pounds the first month.
I think balancing one's diet can be a tricky thing to learn regardless, especially the first time you're out on your own, but I really wish that I'd had the chance to start learning those lessons much earlier. I really think it would have cut back on a lot of the yo-yo fad dieting I did in my 20's.7 -
OP, it's not conscientious parents like you that this awareness drive is aimed towards, it's parents like my neighbors whose grade school kids all weigh over 200 lbs and seem to have Big Gulp cups grafted to their hands. They eat mac & cheese as a complete meal. If your child isn't obese and doesn't throw away fruit because it's not candy, you can afford a few indulgences.
On a related topic, I think cereal - even no-sugar added cereal - isn't such a great breakfast for anyone. Since most people don't drink the milk the cereal sits in, it has almost no protein, and will create a quick burst of carby energy which will be gone long before lunchtime. Usually it's fortified, which confers the same benefits the kid would get from eating a vitamin pill, aka, very limited benefits, vitamins outside the context of the foods they come in mostly go straight through and get peed away. Remember the 70's when cereal commercials said, "Part of a complete breakfast!" And showed the cereal sitting next to bacon, eggs, and a glass of OJ?6 -
Oh but the chocolate milk at the end is the best bit!!!3
-
This literature scope of articles on breakfast cereal consumption & nutrition/health might be interesting to those so inclined:
https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/5/5/636S/4565784
1 -
rheddmobile wrote: »OP, it's not conscientious parents like you that this awareness drive is aimed towards, it's parents like my neighbors whose grade school kids all weigh over 200 lbs and seem to have Big Gulp cups grafted to their hands. They eat mac & cheese as a complete meal. If your child isn't obese and doesn't throw away fruit because it's not candy, you can afford a few indulgences.
On a related topic, I think cereal - even no-sugar added cereal - isn't such a great breakfast for anyone. Since most people don't drink the milk the cereal sits in, it has almost no protein, and will create a quick burst of carby energy which will be gone long before lunchtime. Usually it's fortified, which confers the same benefits the kid would get from eating a vitamin pill, aka, very limited benefits, vitamins outside the context of the foods they come in mostly go straight through and get peed away. Remember the 70's when cereal commercials said, "Part of a complete breakfast!" And showed the cereal sitting next to bacon, eggs, and a glass of OJ?
I eat Coach's Oats with blue berries and a V8 for breakfast pretty much daily...I'm fine through lunchtime. And not everything has to be protein, protein, protein...I get plenty throughout the day.
ETA: I'm also not sure about your claims of limited benefits for taking a vitamin or from vitamin fortified foods. I was vitamin D deficient for a long time despite spending a good amount of time outdoors and started supplementing...I'm no longer deficient with supplementation. Vitamins in excess of what the body needs get peed away.6 -
rheddmobile wrote: »OP, it's not conscientious parents like you that this awareness drive is aimed towards, it's parents like my neighbors whose grade school kids all weigh over 200 lbs and seem to have Big Gulp cups grafted to their hands. They eat mac & cheese as a complete meal. If your child isn't obese and doesn't throw away fruit because it's not candy, you can afford a few indulgences.
On a related topic, I think cereal - even no-sugar added cereal - isn't such a great breakfast for anyone. Since most people don't drink the milk the cereal sits in, it has almost no protein, and will create a quick burst of carby energy which will be gone long before lunchtime. Usually it's fortified, which confers the same benefits the kid would get from eating a vitamin pill, aka, very limited benefits, vitamins outside the context of the foods they come in mostly go straight through and get peed away. Remember the 70's when cereal commercials said, "Part of a complete breakfast!" And showed the cereal sitting next to bacon, eggs, and a glass of OJ?
I'm not familiar with the evidence for the claim that our bodies can't process the vitamins found in fortified food or only processes a very limited amount of them. As someone who is part of a population that receives a key nutrient from either supplementation or fortified foods (vegan, B12), what I've seen is that these this can work to meet our nutritional needs. What we've seen in B vitamin and iodine deficiency rates in the US since fortifying flour and salt became standard also help support the idea that fortification *can* be a useful strategy for ensuring people get what they need. What have you seen to indicate that it won't work to reduce deficiencies?4 -
The current US dietary guidelines recommend limiting foods with excessive added sugars (foods with corn syrup, sugar, etc added during processing) because of the link to heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and weight gain.
About half the added sugar consumed by Americans actually comes from beverages like soda.
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/2016/new-dietary-guidelines-urge-americans-eat-less-added-sugars-saturated-fat-and-sodium4 -
janejellyroll wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »OP, it's not conscientious parents like you that this awareness drive is aimed towards, it's parents like my neighbors whose grade school kids all weigh over 200 lbs and seem to have Big Gulp cups grafted to their hands. They eat mac & cheese as a complete meal. If your child isn't obese and doesn't throw away fruit because it's not candy, you can afford a few indulgences.
On a related topic, I think cereal - even no-sugar added cereal - isn't such a great breakfast for anyone. Since most people don't drink the milk the cereal sits in, it has almost no protein, and will create a quick burst of carby energy which will be gone long before lunchtime. Usually it's fortified, which confers the same benefits the kid would get from eating a vitamin pill, aka, very limited benefits, vitamins outside the context of the foods they come in mostly go straight through and get peed away. Remember the 70's when cereal commercials said, "Part of a complete breakfast!" And showed the cereal sitting next to bacon, eggs, and a glass of OJ?
I'm not familiar with the evidence for the claim that our bodies can't process the vitamins found in fortified food or only processes a very limited amount of them. As someone who is part of a population that receives a key nutrient from either supplementation or fortified foods (vegan, B12), what I've seen is that these this can work to meet our nutritional needs. What we've seen in B vitamin and iodine deficiency rates in the US since fortifying flour and salt became standard also help support the idea that fortification *can* be a useful strategy for ensuring people get what they need. What have you seen to indicate that it won't work to reduce deficiencies?
Yep. My blood work routinely shows that the only Vit D showing up is the D3 from my Vit D supplement. I don't know if it works as well, but I do at least know it's sticking, not getting peed out!2 -
janejellyroll wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »OP, it's not conscientious parents like you that this awareness drive is aimed towards, it's parents like my neighbors whose grade school kids all weigh over 200 lbs and seem to have Big Gulp cups grafted to their hands. They eat mac & cheese as a complete meal. If your child isn't obese and doesn't throw away fruit because it's not candy, you can afford a few indulgences.
On a related topic, I think cereal - even no-sugar added cereal - isn't such a great breakfast for anyone. Since most people don't drink the milk the cereal sits in, it has almost no protein, and will create a quick burst of carby energy which will be gone long before lunchtime. Usually it's fortified, which confers the same benefits the kid would get from eating a vitamin pill, aka, very limited benefits, vitamins outside the context of the foods they come in mostly go straight through and get peed away. Remember the 70's when cereal commercials said, "Part of a complete breakfast!" And showed the cereal sitting next to bacon, eggs, and a glass of OJ?
I'm not familiar with the evidence for the claim that our bodies can't process the vitamins found in fortified food or only processes a very limited amount of them. As someone who is part of a population that receives a key nutrient from either supplementation or fortified foods (vegan, B12), what I've seen is that these this can work to meet our nutritional needs. What we've seen in B vitamin and iodine deficiency rates in the US since fortifying flour and salt became standard also help support the idea that fortification *can* be a useful strategy for ensuring people get what they need. What have you seen to indicate that it won't work to reduce deficiencies?
Yep. My blood work routinely shows that the only Vit D showing up is the D3 from my Vit D supplement. I don't know if it works as well, but I do at least know it's sticking, not getting peed out!
Oh, yes. Vitamin D is another one that many people get from either supplementation or fortified foods. Given how many people begin taking it after having low levels of it observed in their blood work, we'd *know* if supplementing with it didn't work!2 -
As I understand it, the deal on supplements and fortified food is this:
Supplements get peed out, if they are in excess of what the body needs and is getting from other parts of the diet.
Supplements are absorbed and used by the body, if the body needs them and hasn't gotten them elsewhere.
My doctor calls supplements "insurance." They're a relatively cheap way of insuring that the body is getting all it needs, just in case one's diet lacks a bit here and there. He's a pretty decent doctor.
4 -
On the subject of sugar and kids (quick disclaimer: I am not a parent, but I was someone's child) I think you should prepare kids to live real life. If you foresee your child living in a world where they will be surrounded by lots of sugary treats, I think it's more helpful to teach them a realistic balance.
When I was growing up, we ate plenty of sugary foods (kids cereal, Hostess cupcakes, OJ, etc), but soda was a rare "special occasion" treat and we only got chocolate candy at Halloween (in careful doses) and from Santa, much to my distress. I honestly don't know why these two foods were singled out. When I got an after school job in high school, I proceeded to assert my independence by getting a soda and a candy bar out of the vending machines for dinner many nights. After I got it out of my system, I went back to eating the way I was otherwise taught - all the food groups in meals, snacks eaten judiciously as a "bonus". Which worked fine until I got into my mid-30s and became a lazy *kitten*
ETA:
And fun fact: When I was a baby I turned yellow and my mom rushed me to the doctor. Turns out the only baby food she could get me to eat were carrots and squash, and the beta carotene turned me yellow, so maybe I was a weird kid.5 -
Evelyn_Gorfram wrote: »As I understand it, the deal on supplements and fortified food is this:
Supplements get peed out, if they are in excess of what the body needs and is getting from other parts of the diet.
Supplements are absorbed and used by the body, if the body needs them and hasn't gotten them elsewhere.
My doctor calls supplements "insurance." They're a relatively cheap way of insuring that the body is getting all it needs, just in case one's diet lacks a bit here and there. He's a pretty decent doctor.
This matches my understanding. We do eliminate (some) vitamins when they're consumed in higher quantities that we need (whether they're directly from food or from supplements/fortified foods), but if you're in a situation where you need them, then your body will use them.2
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 392.1K Introduce Yourself
- 43.6K Getting Started
- 259.9K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.7K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.4K Fitness and Exercise
- 403 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.8K Motivation and Support
- 7.9K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.4K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 986 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.4K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions