I’ve been keto for 7 or so months now. Love it. I’m sold.
My eyes have been opened to just how much BS we shove at our kids:
High sugar breads, high sugar jelly, constant high sugar snacks, ridiculously high sugar desserts.
I can’t even get my two girls (8 and 5) to eat one meal that isn’t an amazing infusion of carbs and sugar into their system and what follows? THE CRASH. Bad moods, more snacking hunger. It’s so stupid. And schools even encourage it. But my kids will not budge. They will not eat nuts, eggs, milk, bacon… anything. They are in carb land of cereals, PBJ sandwiches, granola bars, apple sauce and carrots.
I have no idea what to do and whether I should even do anything. I survived 38 years eating carbage but as I spread the high fructose corn syrup jelly onto their sandwich just now I thought “I need to post this to the keto forum b/c im pissed off.”
Just a rant I guess. But if anyone has any thoughts…
(they do eat cheese sticks… I’ll give them that. )
Quit buying them carbage. Only serve keto foods. They either eat it or they go hungry. It might take a missed meal or 2, but they won’t starve. Right now they know they can whine and beg and you’ll cave.
All 5 of my kids (ages 2-15) are keto at home. A few of them balked at the idea and missed supper, but now they’ve all come around. They still eat school lunch, but their carb load is vastly reduced.
I definitely have thoughts… In fact I have a very strong opinion as we just went through this with our kids.
Like you, the adults in the house started keto 7 months ago and realized what junk our kids are eating. And we were pretty good actually compared to most.
Let me ask you this… can your kids drive and buy themselves food? Do they go grocery shopping by themselves? No? In that case you are in charge.
My kids are older (10 and 9) but I would argue that it is no less challenging. We did a fair bit of brainwashing about the dangers of sugars and carbs, showed them a few documentaries with people going blind and getting their limbs cut off due to T2D, as well as very graphic footages of rotten teeth getting pulled out. Then, while they were freshly distraught, we went through the pantry and fridge and cleaned the house of all non-keto foods. My son was fine with it, my daughter had a hard time seeing her cereal doing into a trash bag. But it was symbolic and “final”. We made a big production out of it that we are taking charge of our health. There is nothing in the house that they can grab that is not “keto”. Absolutely nothing.
Then, we instituted a 3 meals a day no snacks rule. Breakfast, no snack packed for school, lunch packed for school (they are not allowed to buy junk from the school cafeteria), and then dinner. If they refuse breakfast, they have to wait until lunch. If they refuse lunch, they have to wait until dinner. Rest assured they had to eat eventually. I am brutal and do not give in to tears and claims of starvation. Don’t want to eat what is in front of you? Too bad.
No, they did not die of starvation. Not only that, they now LOVE keto foods and eat everything we cook. All of it. Their appetite is so much more balanced, they try new things all the time, and now they are trying to brainwash their friends at school too, lol. My son has some ADHD issues that have improved so dramatically, the teachers have asked if I have started him on meds. Nope, no meds, just keto.
Think of this as medicine. You wouldn’t give the kids poison if they cried and begged for it and refuse to eat, would you? So, just stay strong, and they will get there.
This is the struggle of parenting in an age where obesity is rampant… I have a 12 year old son that is obese and it breaks my heart now that I’ve solved this problem for myself. I want to help him, but I’m not sure how.
Everything we celebrate in life is done with carbohydrates. Gary Taubes outlines this really well in his book “the case against sugar”. Birthdays, Easter, Halloween, Valentine’s day, cakes, chocolates, sweets, etc. All carbs all day long when we celebrate those things.
But what kind of parent would I be to tell him “you can’t eat that stuff anymore”, or “you must skip the birthday cake at little Timmy’s birthday party?”
I think people who say “just don’t feed them that and keep it out of the house” are oversimplifying the problem. The problem is one of culture, and it’s not going to change anytime soon.
I don’t know the ultimate solution(s) to solving my son’s obesity problem. There’s a bit of a tightrope walk involved, and I’m not quite sure how to handle it. But I refuse to force my lifestyle down his throat.
Keeping it out of the house really isn’t oversimplifying it. Home should be a “safe place” and that includes food. That doesn’t mean a child has to give up all the things. My home is keto 24/7 now. But my children can choose to have cake for a birthday, eat a few Christmas cookies, have a little Halloween candy. We just treat these as the treats they should be, and talk about portions and smart choices.
My kids are not keto 24/7 but their intake of carbs is massively reduced, they know how to make good choices, and they get to still be kids. They’ve now got the tools and a safe place to use them, so they won’t end up like me.
No this is great. I get it. I know what I’m doing wrong but as said above - it’s our culture.
I’m brainstorming with the wife now about what to do.
One thought. Do kids need keto aide and salts? I wouldn’t want to have them deal with that. But I guess they wouldn’t necessarily have to be complete keto. But I was always under the impression that going half way in is just a painful low blood sugar game. Right? 80 grams of carbs a day sucks bc your hungry. 20 is great but you need to be salting and fat adapted.
I’ve read a few times (no sources, sorry) that kids in general have better metabolic flexibilty. I.E. Most, if not all, could likely get away with a higher carb limit than 20g yet still receive comparable benefits. Maria Emmerich talks a good bit about her kids & keto.
So don’t supply it to them. Let them have their tantrums while they detox the crap. They will eat when they are hungry and if it’s only proper food available, then it’ll have to be proper food.
Yes the moods and tantrums will be nasty to go through, but the long term benefits…
Yeah, my parents did that, and then I sought out the “good stuff” thanks to the other kids at school. And you can be damn sure I spent every last allowance cent on garbage. ESPECIALLY when my parents weren’t looking.
The rift this caused between my parents and I wound up being pretty immense - partially because of the culture of deprivation I had at home versus the kids at school that were allowed all sorts of stuff I was NEVER allowed to have.
I understand the intent behind not supplying them with “junk”. I also understand the intent behind ‘home being a place where you eat correctly’. But the reality is that neither of these worked for me. Just the opposite, it made me seek out alternative routes for my junk food habit.
Again, I don’t know the solution, but holy crap, am I living with the problem I know I’m not helping matters because I tend to overcomplicate things.
But the way you were raised is NOT the same as providing healthy food at home and allowing choices outside. Your parents made it taboo, therefore even more appealing to a kid/teen. That’s not good for anyone and can cause disordered eating.
But a balance of healthy at home and treats/choices outside the home, gives your kid the tools to become a healthy, informed adult.
I have thoughts related to kids, then young adults, then adults, then mature adults eating said carbage crap. It is said that it is OK for these folks who do not have a deranged metabolism to eat the carbs like this. However, don’t we all know by now that eating like that over decades (and for me it only took 5-6 yrs because at 7 I was already porking out), the metabolism DOES get deranged… that’s where the heart attack at 50 comes from. Or 60 or 70, etc. That’s where the diabetes and obesity come from. Or just middle age creep, that 5-10 lbs weight gain per year.
So knowing this, why do so many sources say it’s OK for them to eat the carbage now when we know it IS doing damage, one donut or one bowl of cereal or one Snickers bar at a time. Even the rice and potatoes… full of empty carbs! It’s not OK. Why do we say it’s ok when these health problems are looming on the horizon for these people too? Weren’t we once not metabolically deranged? Weren’t we once ‘normal?’ We see it in non-US populations that adopt a SAD diet… they gain 20-40 lbs and become diabetic. Within 2 generations they’re in a mess. So I’d love to see podcasts start to say that no it’s not OK for people with “seemingly” normal metabolisms be carb happy. They should be warned against it.
I don’t know that my parents made it “taboo” - just that they felt that I would keep getting fatter if they ever provided any of the garbage I loved so much. My point is that their actions didn’t matter - I simply went elsewhere to get what I wanted, making their “strategy” of keeping it out of the house completely ineffective. I was still able to get all the crap I wanted - I just had to use more subversive ways to do it.
My problem is compounded by my wife - who I love a great deal - but never knew the struggle of obesity. She is the very poster child for “moderation in all things” which failed me so spectacularly in life. It is really frustrating, because her approach to this simply NEVER worked for me long term - and it’s clearly not working for my son. But she insists on applying it because it works for her, and therefore “it must work for everyone else.” Seriously, she should go work for Coca Cola.
So I walk this tightrope between where I, as a former large person, want to help my 12 year old son but don’t yet know how, and my wife (who has NEVER been heavy) trying to apply her success to him because it works so well for her without much regard to how badly it failed me. We’re trying to work through it, but how do you convince someone like her that “the struggle is real”?
Well, try the above suggestions. At least then you can check them off the “I tried it” list. It may work for him, or a combo of that and therapy for food addiction/issues (something I wish my parents had done.)
This is the kind of oversimplification I’m talking about. It’s not that you’re WRONG, per se - because yes, I do the shopping, and I am in charge, yadda yadda. But you aren’t giving me or my son the craftyness credit we deserve for the things we’d do to get the candy/carbs/sugar bombs we wanted in life.
There was nothing from stopping 12 year old me from using my allowance to buy a ton of junk. Stores, particularly today, are plentiful even in the 'burbs. There’s even LESS stopping my 12 year old son these days. There’s more avenues for him to buy junk than there ever were when I grew up - and I still managed.
Is the solution to not give him an allowance? Do I somehow alter his entire reward structure AROUND the problem of food? Again, I don’t know what the solution is, I am simply trying to live through the problem
My brother and his wife have four boys (triplets who are eight and one a year younger). They are only allowed soda on birthdays and everything they eat is homemade from scratch, with their involvement so they learn how to properly prepare food. Both my brother and his wife work too. I honestly don’t know how they do it, but those boys are the brightest, happiest and healthiest kids possible.
This is exactly what I did as a sugar addicted kid in an Atkins household. When I was too young to get access to things outside the home except at friends’, I would binge eat fruit, sneak down to the kitchen at night and eat sugar straight from the box. In high school they gave us M&Ms to sell for a band fundriaser, I spent my own allowance to buy every bag. At 15 I got a job in a drug store and suddenly had money and access to unlimited candy. I knew the whole time it was harming me, but I am an addict and could not stop. I don’t know how to stop someone who needs that fix.
I know I’m not helping matters because I tend to overcomplicate things.