Raising kids with PP

[Songwriter]

I don't have kids, just curious. It would seem to me to be almost impossible to keep kids off of sugar. I wonder what percentage of people (USA) eats low carb. Probably less than 1%? If so, that's quite an uphill battle with all of the marketing pushing carbs!

It would be interesting to look at the diet of youngsters. With cokes and sweets and snacks, my gosh, no telling how high the carb percentage is.

If I had kids, wow, that would be a battle!

[maxlharris]

Bill, it's more like 5-15% of Americans who self-identify as low carbers.

I look at it as one more reason not to have kids.

[laughingW]

I've had kids, grandkids coming, and it's way easier than you'd think. It's part of the marketing myth to SAY "impossible to keep kids off sugar."

When they are really little, 0-5 ish, all they have, you can control. Even with a grandparents as pushers, there's a lot you can do, like you can let them accept the treat and then control how and when they eat it, to minimize the impact on the body.

5-10, as they start going into the world, you can simultaneously teach them what it feels like to have really good food, and teach them the connection between junk and being off the wall. Kids as young as 5 and 6 get this. Halloween and candy holidays, if you start a buy-back program where you offer them cash in return for the junk, most kids go for the cash. Classroom teachers are starting to get the idea that treats don't have to be cupcakes.

Pre teen and teen, they will want to not be "different" from others, so can be expected to try SAD eating. My own DD chose to keep this to an absolute minimum so she would look normal, but no way was she going to eat a lot of HFCS and processed food, for skin and figure reasons. They are not dumb. And we always had lots of real good food for teen snacks and they never turned it down. They are just hungry all the time and if SAD is what you give them, that's what they eat. If good is what you give them, ditto.