How to Cut Out Refined Sugar from Your Child's Diet

Fruit will put a smile on your child's face without refined sugars.

Nourishing your child with healthy foods is a primary goal as a parent, but you face a dizzying array of choices. Unfortunately, many foods are filled with refined sugars that can cause tooth decay, obesity, cardiovascular disease and the onset of Type 2 diabetes. To avoid the potential risk of these ailments, parents must lower and eliminate the processed sugars in their families' diet. Although children may initially complain at the loss of their favorite sugary treats, they will adjust with time.

Things You'll Need

• Healthy snacks
• Low-sugar beverages

Instructions

1. Eat home-cooked meals. At home, you can cook fresh, healthy food while monitoring processed sugar levels. Restaurant food is often higher in sugar, which can sabotage your child's healthy diet.

2. Offer healthy snacks that are low in refined sugars, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, cheese and whole-grain crackers. Make baked treats with honey or unsweetened pureed fruit.

3. Provide low-sugar and no-sugar beverage options. Your child can stay well-hydrated with water, low-fat milk and limited amounts of pure, fresh juice. Avoid sugary sodas and flavored drinks. According Help Guide, a website that offers advice on health and nutrition, "One 12-oz soda has about 10 teaspoons of sugar in it, more than three times the daily recommended limit for children!"

4. Read food labels. Many foods, especially boxed cereals, have hidden sources of refined sugars. According to University of Maryland's healthy eating guide for children, cereals should have no more than 10 grams of sugar per serving. Look for the various forms that sugar takes in food. Sucrose, fructose, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup are all highly refined sugars that you should try to avoid.

Tips & Warnings

• Make changes to your child's diet slowly. Eliminate one source of refined sugar each week.

• Occasionally allow your child to have a sugary treat.

• Bring healthy snacks from home when you know you will be in a place where low-sugar options are scarce.

• There has been a lot of controversy over the issue of ADD with some speculation over whether or not diet can help in the treatment in some cases. With a seemingly ubiquitous number of cases diagnosed in the schools today, some parents have looked beyond medication for the treatment of ADD symptoms. With the elimination of all refined sugars in your child's diet, you may be surprised at the results. If no results occur, you can rule out sugar as the source of your child's symptoms.

• A word about HFCS. Although much research has been conducted regarding FDA-approved High Fructose Corn Syrup, or HFCS, results have shown this sweetener to be relatively innocuous. However, it is still a good idea to avoid this sweetener in your sugar-elimination diet and beyond, especially considering that the long-term results of its use are not yet in. Try and stick to whole sugars, avoiding chemically-enhanced, genetically modified sweeteners.

References

• Help Guide: Nutrition for Children and Teens
• University of Maryland: Healthy Eating for 6- to 12-year-old Children
• "CBS News"; Kids Eat Too Much Added Sugar; Lloyd de Vries; 2009
• "Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders";Reduction in Added Sugar Intake and Improvement in Insulin Secretion in Overweight Latina Adolescents;Jaime N. Davis, et al.; 2007