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?
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
I feel like this is a reasonable response. Early childhood is an easier time to regulate sugar intake and definitely developmentally crucial so you don’t want any extra unhealthy foods complicating things.
I was raised similarly and have a pretty healthy relationship with sugar today. I just always worried about the kids whose parents freaked out about them having a soda at a birthday party when they were like 8 or something. I understand policing sugar up to maybe grade school, but past that definitely has a negative effect emotionally and can lead to kids bingeing when they’re cut loose.
That reminds me, I avoided exposing my son to soft drinks until he was maybe 5yo. As a result he didn’t like soft drinks and wouldn’t touch them until he was about 12yo. Fortunately here in Australia all birthday parties also offer cordial - artificial fruit juice, but not carbonated.
Now he drinks as much as he wants, which is probably a can or 2 per week.
That’s kind of how I was. I did go through a root beer kick in my 20s but that was still pretty tame and mostly just like sampling a couple different ones a week. I still have my favorites I’ll buy six packs of every couple to few months lol but, for the most part, it’s not something I seek out aside from that. I seem to like the less sweet root beers as well, so maybe that’s connected.
Neural pathways alone, the difference between “I LOVE sugar” being written into your source code to “I like sugar” as a browser extension.