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 wasn’t allowed much sugar as a kid and I still have all of my teeth and no fillings at 48. Only repair work is from not wearing a gum shield when kickboxing.
My parents were very anti-sugar and extremely controlling of our diet, there was a lock on the pantry door and everything (which is how I learned to pick locks 😉). All of us went wild in adulthood. All of us are obese except my sister who runs a half marathon per day. The funny thing is my parents never ate healthy, they would devour desserts at work and hide candy in their bedroom closet. My dad drinks a gallon of chocolate milk per week today.
Yeah, that’s usually what bans do for you in the long run. And while the bans are in effect, the policy makers are hoarding all of it to themselves.
I had no sugar except on weekends as a kid. I think I eat less sugar than the average American now, and I’m over 40. I also did a “Whole30” in my 30s and I think that had an effect on my palate as well
That’s a thing I saw in Sweden and Iceland: sugar/candy is allowed, but only on Saturday. It’s a nice, well-delinileated bit of moderation that isn’t an outright ban. I suspect it’s a recurring theme throughout countries in the area.
And it seems to do very well. I think the Nordics are doing very well on obesity and diabetes, for instance. … I mean, if we wanted to point out another way the Nordics are just killin’ it.
My good friend was heavily guilted growing up when they wanted any food their parents deemed unhealthy, especially sweets. Guess what, they developed an eating disorder and nearly died from it.
Orthorexia is real and highly inherited like other eating disorders
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.
How dare you call me out like that.
There are cultures where sweet foods are less common or less extreme. They eat American sweets and complain that they don’t like it because it tastes too sweet, or they will complain that America sweetens foods that they normally don’t expect to be sweet.
I grew up having constant access to sweets. While I have never been obese, I do struggle with addiction to sweets and it is a constant challenge to try not to overdo it.
Sweet American bread. Ugh.
Don’t talk shit about my Hawaiian Buns.
It’s not that. Hawaiian buns are a product meant to taste sweet. We’re talking store brand wheat bread type breads.
And on that note, sweetened peanut butter is dessert food, not a sandwich filling. Unsweetened is the best.
I’m an American and yeah, bread shouldn’t be this sweet. Aldi has a good whole wheat that isnt sweet though
We did no added sugar until our kids were 2. We don’t regulate much anymore but it seems like they still love sweet things but don’t crave it or overindulge like I used to when I was their age. A lot of neural development happens early on
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.
My mom kept the fridge stocked with sodas when I was a kid, mostly because I had friends over often and she wanted them to feel welcome. I usually drank soda because it was convenient; quick, cold, no dishes. Over years I downed thousands of sodas. It didn’t even occur to me that I didn’t even like it that much.
Now I drink so much water. I’ll have a soda a few times a year, but if I’m thirsty water is king. I feel like a kid who got caught smoking forced to smoke a whole pack.
Well that doesn’t sound like a good faith argument.
Dosent to me at all
They didnt even really counter your point, they gave another perspective to form a stronger argument of what your message was already saying
Parents should teach and guide their children moderation, especially for such common and addictive substances like sugar, especially when without moderation serious health and quality of life damages can apply
If a parents goal is to raise healthy humans with a high quality of life - they should be teaching and guiding children into moderation, not prohibition and the shame that goes with it, not hedonism and the shamelessness that goes with that
Its not that sugar is some fearful substance that should be prohobited outright, but its also not a substance without issue and should be moderated and controlled if modersation is not yet possible for such a still-developing human
There are many such substances that need this parental guidance, sugar is just the most obvious one to younh parents - a toddler probably/hopefully isnt hitting a 40 or a roach
They didn’t address my point at all and went for the extreme opposite. As if it was a gotcha.
One of the things that makes me ignore my mastodon account is how quickly people take offence there, even going so far as to try to shut down conversation threads on their posts as though they don’t expect any depth or variant viewpoints. While there are lots of “reply guy” types over there, even the hint of disagreement, perceived or real, is seen as objectionable.
This response is similar.
The world must look so small and scary from your perspective if you think this was opposition to you. Its not.
Nah man, I just dislike when people do shit like he did thinking they have a point.
Also nice knee jerk reaction.
Edit: in what world is a counterpoint agreement?
This is so frustrating
The commenter was building on top of your argument
You said prohibition wasnt healthy
They said total absence of control wasnt healthy
They implicitly agreed with you that prohibition wasnt healthy
I then spell it out for you that the message being built, that almost certainly you also agree with, is that moderation is the answer.
A counterpoint turns a random point into a line, a line into a polygon, a polygon into a solid, etc.
That counterpoint gave your message an extra and important dimmension. They thought your message was correct but lacking neccisary nuance.
For some reason you got peeved with that, and i think that looks poorly on you, not anyone else.
I’ve seen the opposite be true. Family members that grew up with Candy/Sugar never left it behind and have impulse control issues that led to substance problems.
Those that had very limited sweet stuff, are able to moderate, or don’t enjoy sweets as much, and haven’t had substance issues.
I think the key factor in substance issues tgough is the persons genetic predisposition and trama.
What is trama?
Like trauma but U weren’t involved
Thank god!
I’d be interested to read some real literature on this. Obviously moderation is the best behavioral choice in the context of life and society, while no refined sugar is obviously the best choice for health.
But if you had two groups of kids, one who was given no sugar and one who was given too much sugar, I bet the former group ends up healthier the vast majority of the time.
I think the real issue is simply that excess calories (and sugary foods are highly dense in calories) leads to obesity. And obesity in childhood lends itself to continued obesity through adulthood, thus higher rates of things like diabetes and high blood pressure.
I think the whole argument about sugar itself is a bit of a moot point. It all comes down to whether or not you let your child become obese while you are still under their care.
I grew up in a household with a lot of sugar. I turned out just fine. Two of my siblings struggle a lot with obesity, and one has been overweight since childhood.
Those kids usally binge on sugar once they hit adolescence and are away from thier parents
Was an absolute soda chugging fiend in college, until a root canal brought me down to earth.
Bingo!
I have a healthy relationship with sugar following a childhood with limited access because sugary things taste too sweet to me now, as well things like almonds and carrots taste sweet to me.
I was allowed sugar, but it was cut way back. For example: my parents would take a box of lucky charms for the appeal, then cut it with a Costco size box of Cheerios. Shitload of Cheerios in a bowl, one sad marshmallow. When I got to college and they had bins of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, etc., I went to town and got hit with what I call the Freshman 40. No diabetes, thank god, but my upbringing’s food control fucked me up and continues to do so.
Freshman 40? It used to be the freshman 15. Inflation is everywhere.
Opposite here. I was born in 1969, so I was a kid in the seventies. My mom was a stay-at-home housewife who packed my school lunches. Often it would consist of a sandwich made of just margarine and sugar on Wonder Bread with the crust cut off (cut diagonally), with either a Jello chocolate pudding or a Ding Dong back when they were wrapped in foil.
I’m four years older than you. I got better lunches than you, but not too much better. Margarine was supposed to be better than butter, so that’s what we got, too. Coffee was thought to be bad, so my mom switched to Postum. She worried that I was eating too many eggs when I learned to make them myself. My mom somewhat tried to be good about food for us. We didn’t get the sugary cereals, we got corn flakes, and rice crispies, but we put sugar on the cereal anyway, and she didn’t stop us. She didn’t keep soda, candy, or other snacks in the house as a rule, that was just for “special occasions”, etc.
What we had was playing outside.
I gave up sugar completely about eight years ago, it was the single best health choice I made.
My family didn’t restrict sugar per se, had candy and soda regularly, however we never had desserts, sugary breakfast, or things like going out for ice cream. As an adult, I rarely crave sweets. Maybe a night or two a month I’ll want a piece of candy before bed. And every few months I’ll get a shake/ice cream. I’m not sure if it’s a learned thing or were predisposed to not crave it.
My brother and I turned out just fine and even today I barely eat any sugar. Although we were not forbidden. My parents just didn’t buy candies.
Yeah, i am also fine. It was interesting to see so many comments where people binged as soon as they were able. Makes me wonder if it’s just cus sugar is delicious, and the craving for it is similar regardless of upbringing.
I wasn’t limited, but we also didn’t have it in the house often. I wasn’t taught moderation with food. Probably because I was extremely active so large portions didn’t have the same detrimental effects as they would have on a sedentary person, and it’s been a problem my entire adult life since I can’t play multiple sports, ride a bike everywhere, and have a morning paper route to bike.
