Do you know families who have children who are stick figured looking kids? I would assume so, children often have such high metabolism that they appear to be skin and bones. The funny thing about this, is that it really seems to come to portions than anything else when you look at kids body shapes.
First off, 99% of children walking around under the age of 14, have a ridiculous metabolism. Even the kid apparently carrying around an extra 30 lbs. So why, oh why…
- Should we care what a kid eats? Its all about fat anyways, right?
- Do some kids actually gain weight?
- Is sugar addiction a bad thing… and I don’t let them have sweets anyways.
Ugh.
First off, lets hit the last one because I hate the lack of understanding that exists in our culture on what sugar addiction really is. So, every single gram of NON fiber carbohydrate will turn into sugar in the body. So if you eat a carbohydrate, no matter where it comes from, you are turning that into blood sugar. Most likely place in kids is the grain… check this out:
- NO SUGAR plain Jane bowl of cereal…. 38 grams of carbs, 4 fiber = 34 grams of blood sugar
- snack bag of pretzels, or fake cheese flavored crackers…. 18 grams of carbs, 1 fiber = 17 grams of blood sugar
- Lunch with a sandwich on two slices of bread – 40 grams of carbs, 6 fiber = 34 grams of blood sugar
- Snack, dinner with pasta, or rice, or who knows what… sugar, sugar, sugar!
I have shared this Ted Talk before, played it in my office, during my 60 Day Turnaround, and generally made a big freaking deal about it. So here you go… and please… watch it, you will be enlightened with knowledge – https://youtu.be/lEXBxijQREo
As I pause and think about the health of our kids, there are two huge differences than the health of ourselves. First, we care about our kids more than ourselves, so we want their health more than our own (this is a mixed up thought, because they learn from your commitments, and they are inspired by your actions). Second, because we also care about nurturing our children to know they are loved, many of us think it is harsh to take away the foods they love, or to force the foods they don’t.
If I allowed myself to swear in my blog, this is where I would insert that curse word.
Seriously? Seriously? You would let the child dictate any portion of their healthcare? Any piece at all? You are way more committed than that, you must be. And remember, so far we are only talking about sugar. If you know anything about gluten, you should know that living a life of gluten upon gluten, will make gluten your worst enemy. Treat it at arms length like God planned… consuming once daily in your daily bread, then you would eat gluten forever and have no side effect. I don’t care what anybody else says, I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Now that I have built my story, lets share it. The stick figured sugared up kid is in major trouble. Because they live off of a metabolism that will likely not stay the same. Thus they will likely develop increased body mass, which in turn becomes body fat, which increases their risk of cancer and heart disease and diabetes. Should they be one of the UNlucky ones who keeps their metabolism, then they will never fully understand the extent of the damage they are doing. As they increase the internal inflammatory attack, destroying their gut leading to inflammatory bowel diseases, leading to auto-immune dysfunction causing other organ issues, failure, and ultimately early death.
I paint a grim picture, but I truly believe we have only scratched the surface on how grim it will get. And we will be lulled into trusting the new this, and the new that for treatment options, and when they fail, we’ll feel misled, but it will be too late to matter.
Thus, the UNlucky stick kid gets messed up just the same. Had he only had the barometer of weight gain to at least bring concern, we might have saved him from all that disease.
Be Smart, Be well and Be blessed! – Dr. E