Twenty years ago, I met a couple with a young son who decided not to let the kid have sugar. I wonder how that might have worked out for the kid now that he’s grown.
I assume the kid hit 18 and went on a sugar binge as soon as he tasted it the first time.
Anyone have experience with this?
I’m thinking there must be a study somewhere.
And indeed there is, where they studied people who were born just before and after the end of WW2 sugar rationing in the UK:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39480913/
Those people are into their 70s and 80s now, so the long term health outcomes are well documented:
…we found that early-life rationing reduced type 2 diabetes and hypertension risk by about 35 and 20% and delayed disease onset by 4 and 2 years, respectively. Protection was evident with in utero exposure and increased with postnatal sugar restriction, especially after 6 months, when eating of solid foods likely began. In utero sugar rationing alone accounted for about one-third of the risk reduction.
Thank you. I know I shouldn’t be surprised this doesn’t have more than 10% of the upvotes for anecdotal “I didn’t get sugar when I was a kid, so my adult onset diabetes and obesity is clearly my parents fault.” But, I’m a little disappointed.
But, it’s not really what I asked. I asked for experience, not studies. I like the anecdotes.
There’s whole news ecosystems based on information based on anecdotes, as opposed to data driven studies.
Surprised Hershey isn’t astro turfiing us with made-up horrors of sugar deprivation.
We’re all fat and our teeth have been mostly replaced with crowns. And even though we’re in our fifties, our attitude towards sugary food is incredibly unhealthy, because we didn’t learn to eat it in moderation, we learned to take advantage of any opportunity that offered us sugary food.
You also lived during the “fat” craze. Fat was deemed bad so manufacturers filled their food with sugar so they could market it as low fat.
It’s Capitalism all the way down
Fuck Kellogg and the Seventh Day Adventists.
Religious zealots ruin everything.
Well, religions ruin everything but they require puppets to do the work.
What did the Seventh Day Adventists do?
They’re directly responsible for the demonization of meat and fats which led to carb heavy diet recommendations which, in turn, caused the obesity epidemic.
Also, they’re a bunch of religious zealots which are categorically a threat to egalitarian democratic societies.
It’s just Puritanism and has all of the drawbacks of an overreaching authority.
Those kids usally binge on sugar once they hit adolescence and are away from thier parents. Great way to create a substance abuse issue. It’s what happens every time you do shit like this.
Prohibition is a method of control that requires a hell of a lot of restrictions to work. And even then it has a high failure rate.
Counterpoint, I see parents giving sodas to toddlers all the time. Reminiscent of that scene in Idiocracy where a parent tries to get their baby to drink Brawndo.
But sugar can cause a slew of problems in kids like childhood obesity, diabetes and
hyperactivitymood swings due to changes in blood sugar levels. The sugar industry has done its best to convince people it’s harmless while packing cheap foods full of it to make it taste better. Countries that consume large amounts of cheap foods like the US have higher obesity rates.Blah blah moderation and all that, but when all you can afford is the cheap shit it’s harder to avoid sugars. Kids finding they might have a sweet tooth when they get older is a tiny concern.
FWIW, it’s a myth that sugar causes hyperactivity. But it’s been shown in studies that parents who believe the myth are more likely to perceive their children’s behaviour as hyperactive when they’ve had sugar.
I think there is evidence that some artificial food additives can have that effect in some people, though.
You’re right, it should probably say mood swings due to changes in blood sugar levels instead as that’s more accurate
