My daughter is 4 and she does not do low-carb. However, I don't let her take in the amount of sugar and carbs I was offered in my childhood. He rarely gets anything but home cooked meals, no food dyes, rarely juice, and treats are usually homemade for her so at least I know what is going in. Tonight she had some of the avocado keto-friendly chocolate pudding I made and loved it. She is growing, slim and vibrant so I'm not worried cause she loves veges and fruit and a variety of other foods.

I know my daughter is not carb sensitive at 5. She is a carb eating machine. My son on the on the other hand is a lot like me even at 11. We are not counting his carbs but we have eliminated the obvious that we can agree is bad such as sugar, juices, pastas ect. If my wife wife was fully on board it would be easier.

This is similar to my situation, though I only have the (not quite) 5 year old. I do low carb, hubby's not entirely on board. As such, son's meals are kind of somewhere in between, overall. As a result, he's just as likely to eat a waffle as he is three or four eggs cooked in butter. I'm not all that concerned, because he's not a big junk food eater (chips are about the worst of it), and he's more likely to beg for fruit or peanut butter than he is for candy. We also don't have a lot of the carb-heavy stuff, anyway, since I switched to Paleo a couple of years ago, so we don't keep things like bread or pasta, anyway. His dinner tonight ended up being a little chicken, a mini sweet pepper, some carrots, and some raspberries, for example.

I have 4 children. (Ages 12, 10, 5, and 3.) Two of them are like daddy (not carb sensitive) and 2 are like me. Generally speaking, I try to limit their carbs some, but they still get treats here and there. I'm struggling with it, as my hubs is of the "if you burn it off, you can have it" club. So if I get too choosey about what I allow them to have, he gets on my case. So they are lower-carb mostly. but not what we would consider "low-carb". I'm not asking them to go as low as I am at all. Hubs buys chips and ice cream. I try to limit it, but I'm having moderate success at that. I really need to do a better job. Supper is meat veggies and a small amount of a non-veggie carb for them. I still have 2 kids 5-and-under, and they are picky as all get out. So breakfast and lunch aren't as healthy.

We homeschool, and it's a 3 ring circus around here a lot of the time. Excuses...but we are having other behavioral issues right now (the middle kids are in a phase) so the food issue will have to wait.

This is an interesting discussion, and timely for me. I have 3 kids, two still at home ages 14 and 5. My 14 year old daughter is tall and slim, and eats all things junky. My 5 year old loves anything not grown or previously breathing, so we have a real struggle at times. My husband is a former athlete, very slim and eats whatever he wants without gaining weight.

As I've just recently started LCHF, I am currently making separate meals for myself, though have tried to introduce more low carb friendly food into the family diet. We eat dinner together every night, so it's helpful for me if we were all eating the same food. I talk to the kids about portion control and eating a healthy mix of protein, carbs and fats, but it still a struggle. I hope, as time goes on, as I learn more about LC and make more LC foods, that the family will benefit from it as well. I don't think any of them will go Keto anytime soon, but I plan to set an example that they can observe and learn from as well.

I do wish I had tried LC sooner. I never understood in my past how I could eat "so healthy" (low fat and lots of fruits and veggies), but still struggle to lose weight. When I look back at my carb consumption and think about all the carb spikes and crashes now, I know why I never lost weight. I also have diabetes on both sides of my family and this is a big concern. I see my mom set in her ways with her eating and even after 20 years of insulin dependency, she can't understand the relationship of carbs to her blood sugar levels. I refuse to be like that and hope to teach my children as well how they can control some health concerns with their diet.

I have adult kids (25 & 18 yrs old) that both live with me & eat what I eat. I am the one who does the cooking in my house & but I don't make 'just' make keto foods.

I make both keto & non keto items for meals & let everyone pick and choose what they'd like to eat. I'm T2D and sadly, one day, one or both of them may be too....or not. Who knows? I figure I'll cover my bases by not worrying about that for now & making sure they are familiar with this WOE in case they'll need it in the future.

Before the Diabetes, there was the Insulin Resistance. Knowing what we know now, both kids are aware of the warning signs of IR, with any luck, it should never go so far as to develop into full blown T2D for them as it did for me, at the ripe old age of 44.

They don't really eat pasta, rice rots in the fridge & bread gets moldy in my house cause they just don't eat the stuff -____-

I still make chicken cutlets with bread crumbs (for them) and other things, but I guess the thing is, they're old enough to make their own decisions about their lives. I influence them as best as I can, then get the hell outta the way

They were old enough to know mom's diagnosis was a serious one and are aware of all the steps I take to manage it. They both also know people (DVM's they work for) who are also T2D and don't manage it well. We also have family members who are T2D and also complacent. Both of my paternal grandparents had it (died of diabetic complications), all of their children, (numbering 6) have it.

I talk with them about the importance of not being 'the Diabetes Police' as it comes up often when we visit with family. I'm pretty confident they'll be ok, no matter how things turn out.

Let's just say they are well versed in how to manage, if one should be granted membership to the club no one wants to join =P

I've been thinking a lot about this. My kids (9 and 12) are, I suspect, both carb-sensitive and gluten-sensitive, like me. Despite their high level of activity, both put on some weight around 8 years old, not obese but veering on that side.

One is now gluten-free, the other (our vegetarian by choice) is slowly on that path. All the food in our house is fresh and relatively healthy, unless you factor in carbs. We use stevia as our sweetener at home. Meals I cook emphasize protein and veggies, but carbs are easily available and some of their fave foods. They see me look at carb and sugar info on packages and now they'll check for "too much" sugar.

What I've started to suggest gently to them is that if at any point they'd like to slim down and/or feel less hungry, I've found a way to do both that works for me and might work for them, too.

If anyone has seen research on kids and keto, please share!

If anyone has seen research on kids and keto, please share!

From the research I've gathered, the keto diet was created for children with epilepsy as it proved to slow down seisure incidence. The children were closely monitored by a physician for obvious reasons but because the tests and whatnot the doctors noticed overall health increased substancially.

BansheeCat wrote: »

Looking back,

<snipped>

however,

My son is so active he needs the carbs...ie.. he's a runner.

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BC;

Nope..... (unless he's a sprinter)

Despite the fact that it's "common wisdom" and "everybody just knows that runners..." - science doesn't agree.

Especially for runners (distance) or others engaged in forms of exercise focusing on endurance.

There is evidence that "burst" type activities (sprinters e.g.) benefit from the carb "hits" - exactly the opposite appears to be true when it comes to endurance types.

Marathoners and distance cyclists "hit the wall" - literally run out of energy stores before the finish, fall down in a heap, and cannot finish the race, precisely because they are accustomed to relying on the carbs and when they run out (because the body can only store so many) - they're DONE.

Endurance runners and cyclists were studied in recent controlled tests (both lab and actual races) on LCHF diets with NO carb "boost" and demonstrated at least equivalent performance levels (increased levels in some) and NO hitting the wall.

Check out studies by Drs Phinney, Volek, and Attia - the proof is in the pudding, not in the dogma.

@deansdad
Low carb running is possible but it isn't necessary in my son's case.