July 10
The food industry is onto our addiction and is capitalizing on it. The real hook, apparently, is the perfect combination of sugar fat and salt – the exact amount that will over-ride your ability to say no, literally breaking your appetite mechanisms. Studies suggest that if you start your kids on a diet like this, especially at breakfast, they will have broken their natural ability to judge hunger and satiety signals by the time they are five years old. Did you know that there is almost an entire aisle in many grocery stores devoted to “breakfast pastries”? And, many people in my industry cut to the chase and call cereals “breakfast candy”.
I spoke at a local grammar school PTA a few years ago on the topic of food and mood. The Kindergarten Teacher, First Grade Teacher and School Nurse all happened to attend. They unanimously claimed that their students all fell asleep around 9:30 every morning. Turns out most kids had not breakfast or essentially sugar for breakfast. As a result, right about that time of the morning, their blood sugar was likely crashing. The school as a whole decided both to instiute healthy snack guidelines (suggesting to parents foods that contained proteins, healthy fats and a limited amount of whole food carbs), as well as change the school lunch options to reflect the same balance.
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