The Truth about kids and sugar
Sugar highs, sugar rushes and sweets…
I was going to write a newsletter about Division of Responsibility (or intuitive eating and self-regulation which is the Aware Parenting approach). But then I received “The Burnt Toast Guide to kids & sugar”, which is Virgina Sole-Smith’s excellent newsletter on anti-diet culture and parenting. And it’s SO GOOD that it makes more sense to copy it here and encourage you to subscribe to her substack if it resonates:
“Kids know when they’re eating in ways they know we won’t like. This can make them more frenetic about eating a lot of that food, or more anxious that they’ve eaten too much. And then our expectations are met, and the cycle is doomed to repeat itself.
Birthday parties aren’t the only place kids pick up on our sugar fears. When we require kids to eat their lunch in a certain order (treats last!) or tell them they have to finish their main meal in order to earn dessert, we are quite literally rebranding “treats” as forbidden fruit. But scientific research has known for years that this will backfire. Being told they have to “earn” certain foods makes kids want them more, and makes them much less excited about the salad we tell them to slog through first. And because these messages are so pervasive, it’s virtually impossible to study the physiological impact of sugar on humans alone. Our emotional responses to sugar—learned in early childhood and reinforced ever since by diet culture—are always coming into play.
That’s why the sugar high myth also helps to pave the way for the sugar addiction myth, which we apply to both kids and adults.”
Virgina’s guide is full of research, personal experience and “what-to-do instead” tips. If you’ve got the time and mental capacity for another newsletter, you can follow her here, or listen to her podcast here.
Changing our relationship with food
As someone who grew up in a highly-restrictive household, I can attest how hard this new approach is. As soon as I had some control over what I ate, I went through a phase of binge-eating as much sugar and fats as I could. This lasted YEARS and well into early adulthood.
As my children grow older and have more autonomy over what and when they eat, I’ve had to do some hard self-reflection and re-visiting of past ideas. I’m strongly anti-diet culture and I want my children to have a completely different relationship with food.
If you too are struggling with this - either looking at your own patterns, or you fear loosing control over what they eat, or you struggle to trust they will self-regulate and eat intuitively, then having a regular weekly catch up could help.
That’s exactly why I created the Container package, so we can take a deep and open-hearted look at the issues you’re struggling with.