Post by Amtram on Mar 19, 2014 10:18:50 GMT -5
and other parenting myths. The article has links to a couple of studies, but not all of them, so it's a good quick read. But the headlining point was really relevant to parents of kids with ADHD.
I like to point out that depriving kids of sugar to keep them calm is a double-edged sword. Because they aren't exposed to it at reasonable levels, their little bodies are more likely to overreact to a cupcake or a cookie, and that makes it look as if the sugar is the culprit behind their hyperactivity. It also does them no favor socially to be the only kids who don't eat anything with sugar. Yes, kids with diabetes can't, and kids with food allergies have restrictions too, but these are well-understood to be life-threatening food exposures, not behavioral issues.
Lots of parents swear that a single hit of birthday cake holds the power to morph their well-behaved, polite youngster into a sticky hot mess that careens around a room while emitting eardrum-piercing shrieks. Anyone who has had the pleasure to attend a 5-year-old’s birthday party knows that the hypothesis sounds reasonable, except that science has found that it’s not true.
Sugar doesn’t change kids’ behavior, a double-blind research study found way back in 1994. A sugary diet didn’t affect behavior or cognitive skills, the researchers report. Sugar does change one important thing, though: parents’ expectations. After hearing that their children had just consumed a big sugar fix, parents were more likely to say their child was hyperactive, even when the big sugar fix was a placebo, another study found.
Of course, there are plenty of good reasons not to feed your kids a bunch of sugar, but fear of a little crazed sugar monster isn’t one of them.
Sugar doesn’t change kids’ behavior, a double-blind research study found way back in 1994. A sugary diet didn’t affect behavior or cognitive skills, the researchers report. Sugar does change one important thing, though: parents’ expectations. After hearing that their children had just consumed a big sugar fix, parents were more likely to say their child was hyperactive, even when the big sugar fix was a placebo, another study found.
Of course, there are plenty of good reasons not to feed your kids a bunch of sugar, but fear of a little crazed sugar monster isn’t one of them.
I like to point out that depriving kids of sugar to keep them calm is a double-edged sword. Because they aren't exposed to it at reasonable levels, their little bodies are more likely to overreact to a cupcake or a cookie, and that makes it look as if the sugar is the culprit behind their hyperactivity. It also does them no favor socially to be the only kids who don't eat anything with sugar. Yes, kids with diabetes can't, and kids with food allergies have restrictions too, but these are well-understood to be life-threatening food exposures, not behavioral issues.