So, over the past few weeks there have been a LOT of coverage over childhood obesity and how the government plan on fixing this. As usual, their plans couldn’t be further from actually fixing the problem if they tried.
Their solution is to replace snacks (crisps, chocolate etc) with fruit – or sugar with fructose (form of sugar ) Obviously, fruit is better than those snacks, but its not the solution at all. Snacking on fruit is fine… but it brings up the question “why do our kids need to snacks?”. What is causing them to want to eat between meals?
Identifying The Problem Within The Problem
The answer is all down to what we eat at breakfast. More importantly, what we DON’T eat at breakfast. I am a 42 year old man who eats a protein based food diet each morning to start my day.
When consuming protein, the body uses the food rather slowly, as apposed to a high calorie food intake like most children and some adults now days.
Why’s Sugar More A Problem Than Fats?
As soon as a sugar based food enters the body, it spikes the insulin and you get that hit of high. With a protein based intake, the body takes much longer to go through the breaking down process. This means no instant spike hit of sugar or insulin.
I have also given what the nutritional profile of each of these breakfasts are, and how much sugar is in each “portion”. Now i use the word “portion” loosely here…. why? Well, they recommend that a portion of cereal is 30g with milk. Have you ever actually weighed 30g of cereal to see how much you actually get in a bowel…… not a lot! 30g of cereal is about 2 hand full’s and that’s if you have particularly small hands.
The first thing to note and question here is “How much are you actually eating?”. I can guarantee you its more than 30 grams. Most people will fill their bowels up half way to three quarters of the way up, then full the rest with milk, and then add more sugar to make the cereal taste any good.
Sugar Galore
Leaving that to one side for a moment, lets concentrate on just how much sugar is in these portions and then try to work out what the issue is here!
Frosties = 17g per serving
Sugar Puffs = 10.5g per serving
Krave = 15g per serving
Coco Pops = 17g per serving
Cheerio’s = 12.3g per serving
Crunchy Nut = 17g per serving
For most of them, you are looking at about 50% of the cereal being sugar. Lets just take a second to think about that… in a 30g bowel of coco pops, OVER HALF of it is sugar.
We’ve already established, above, that we probably eat a lot more than 30 grams in a serving, so just think about how much sugar you are actually eating at breakfast – or even your children are eating. Now lets also not forget the amount of sugar some people ALSO sprinkle on top of the cereal.
Do you also have toast for breakfast? Jam on the toast? Nutella on the toast? Glass of orange juice perhaps? Sugar, sugar and more sugar! Its actually quite scary to think about. Then you wonder why you suddenly start to gain weight.
I’m not even going to focus on the lack of protein or good fats. Also, where there are fats presents, its certainly not the good essential fats we need.
The Problem Isn’t Food, It’s People
The original issue i addressed, above, was to do with the rise in childhood obesity and what is the root cause. It’s mainly down to an uneducated adult that then just passes their bad habits onto their children. The child doesn’t stand a chance.
Now there are many root causes… however, i strongly believe that the breakfast we are feeding our children is high up on the list. Its definitely in the top 3 main issues – the other two being lack of exercise and pure education on nutrition.
The type of food both my wife and I consume would make you think we are eating a main meal for breakfast. But we both listen to what our bodies want and we give them just that. Good food with plenty of good fats. Don’t go through life thinking and believing that FAT makes you FAT, it doesn’t and it won’t make you fat.
Why Does Sugar Make You Fat?
Sugar does make you fat. The faster you can come to understand this, the better you will feel and your body will thank you for it. How you may ask? Your skin with glow, the spots will start to vanish, your weight gain will stop and revert to your normal weight for your age. You will be able to climb the stairs without getting out of breath. Your blood sugar will return to a normal count.
Go and find the old photos of your Granddad or relatives. Because there were no fast food outlets they had to cook for themselves. They looked thin to you because they were fit and not over weight. No mass intake of sugar like no days.
“Our pancreas creates a hormone called insulin that transports blood sugar into our body’s cells where it is used for energy. When we eat refined grains that have had most of their fibre stripped away, sugar, or other carbohydrate-rich foods that are quickly processed into blood sugar, the pancreas goes into overtime to produce the insulin necessary for all this blood sugar to be used for energy. This insulin surge tells our body that plenty of energy is readily available and that it should stop burning fat and start storing it.”
So, lets dissect what is going on here. We wake up… eat a high carbohydrate (of which sugars are also very high) meal and then trot off to work or school. Our blood sugar levels increase and we get a nice surge of energy. 8 out of 10 people (and all children) then proceed to sit behind a desk, or school desk, for the proceeding 3 to 4 hours before lunch.
While this happens, our blood sugar levels then start to fall… and they fall quickly – they crash in fact. When they crash, then fall below the baseline sugar levels we desire and then experience a sugar “low” or “Sugar Crash” as its also known.
Common Side Effects Of Consuming Sugar
The other issues we have is when we get these massive peaks and troughs in sugar, our attention spans are decreased, our energy levels are all over the place and unless exercise is taken into account, fat gain is an inevitable out come of the situation. So what is the solution? Its quite simple… stop feeding ourselves or our children so much sugar.
What should we eat for breakfast? Again, this is simple… fats and protein. Sugar has little/no positive hormonal impact on your body – sure insulin is effected, but not in a good way.
Proteins and Fats kick start a whole chain of positive hormones first thing in the morning… thyroid, testosterone, lowered cortisol etc etc the list goes on.
As a man/young boy growing up, surely the first thing we want in the morning is for our stress levels to come down and our testosterone to increase? Think about it boys. To conclude – change the way you think about breakfast.
Don’t just eat cereal because its on the telly or the government tell you too. Its rubbish. Eat a good source of protein and a variety of fats first thing. Try it for just a week and see how you get on.
I promise you, it’ll be a life changing experiment and you’ll never go back to eating sugar for breakfast again!