It’s not sugar that is making our kids fat.
Over and over again I keep reading the same thing, the same concerns from parents, the same complaints.
They talk about “excess sugar consumption”, the “sugar culture”. They wax lyrical about the “obesity epidemic” and throw in a few “in-my-days”.
The common theme is that kids these days are getting by on a daily diet of corn syrup and cane sugar; that we may as well be hooking them up to an IV and blasting liquidized jelly-snakes into their veins.
In their day cakes weren’t heard of at school. In their day birthday parties didn’t give out lolly bags.
In their day children received an orange from Santa rather than a bag of chocolate coins.
(It makes me thank my lucky stars that I wasn’t brought up “in their day” as I certainly had birthday cakes at school, lolly bags at parties and Santa always brought gold coins.)
The argument goes the same from these sugar scaremongers – it’s the fault of our schools, it’s the fault of other parents for supplying sweets at sporting events, it’s the fault of everyone else except for these parents themselves.
It’s an argument I am tired of.
It makes me weary with the outrage just for outrage sake. Don’t you wonder when we are going to stop dragging the fun away from everything?
When they rant about the evils of birthday cakes at school and cry out for bans and blacklists their argument always seems to circumvent the need for parental responsibility.
Here’s a simple solution for those concerned about their children’s excess sugar consumption.
Let’s everyone practice it with me. You need to breathe deep, square up your shoulders look your child deep in their eyes. Don’t back down now you can do this. Now all together let’s say it: NO.
Did you try it? No.
No, you can’t have an ice-block. No, you can’t have a packets of chips. No, you can’t have an extra piece of cake. No, you had a cupcake the other day at school for a friend’s party so you can’t have one now.
You will be surprised how well it works.
The problem with never saying no to your child is that your child will never learn how to say no to somebody else. If you bring them up to be Veruca Salt they are going to drag you down the garbage chute as well.
Once parents start saying no an amazing thing happens, their children learn to say no as well. No thanks they will say at parties I only need one cupcake. No thanks they will say at school I had recess I don’t want a piece of cake. It won’t happen all the time, but it will happen enough.
If you give them everything in moderation they will learn to moderate themselves through a moderate diet.
When did this outrage at sugar start though? Because with three kids myself I don’t see any actual “increase” in cakes or lollies.
And when did parents find it so hard to just say no?
Is it that we are all so time poor and so guilt-ridden for our hectic lifestyles that we feel we are leaving our children hard done by if we say no.
If the calls to ban birthday cakes at school, to demonise sugar, to scrap the occasional jelly-snake at a soccer game are heralded then it leaves us with a generation of children who see nutritional choices as black or white, good or bad– rather than showing them it is simply fuel.
Isn’t it sending the wrong kind of message, instead of saying cakes are bad shouldn’t we be saying that cakes are good fun – for a special occasion – but you don’t need to have them all the time.
What I wish parents would focus on, instead of making the humble cupcake the enemy, is education – teaching their kids about the right choices as well as teaching their kids about being targeted by junk food advertising.
Instead of being outraged about children’s birthday cakes we should be outraged by a generation of parents who abdicate parental responsibility.
Instead of being worried about jelly-snakes and lolly bags we should be worried about what will happen when these children, children who never learnt moderation – who instead were banned and blacklisted from sugar – find themselves in the lolly aisle of Woolworths alone for the first time.
That’s when the real problems will begin.
Do you think cakes and lolly bags should be banned?
Top Comments
My kids eat a balanced diet and they are a healthy, normal weight. They are learning the difference between healthy and unhealthy food and even more importantly understand the concept of "treats". How is this possible?? Sensible parenting and constant education! I NEVER buy my children fast food. That's a NEVER. Even a few days ago, after my oldest attended speech night, she said she was starving and could we get something on the way home. (a rarity for her) We told her to wait until she got home. The 15 minutes she had to wait didn't kill her and she was able to eat something better than fries or a burger. And she learnt that even late at night, you can wait for something better to eat.
If cakes and chips and lollies are "treat" foods, then you reduce the expectation of eating sugary foods. When one of my kids was in prep, she was offered Mcdonalds in a food court when she was out with her friend. She told the parents she wasn't allowed and could she have sushi instead. It's not rocket science, it's about educating children about balanced diets.
It's not cakes at school that's the problem - it's the lack of education and self restraint from parents and children in terms of the amount of unhealthy food eaten and desired. My youngest would be the size of a small country if I let her eat everything she wanted to - I am constantly educating her and saying the magic word "no". It's a lifetime process, not something learnt in 5 minutes and that's the biggest problem we face.
Brilliant article. I am a nanny and I am appalled at how naive parents are by not reading nutrition labels and being pressured to buy certain foods and snacks because saying no will result in the child "not eating anything else"
Kids will not starve themselves, they are just given too many choices when we need to be providing the healthy options