Sweets – every kid loves to eat them, and as parents, we just want to see our kids happy. It turns out; sweets are not at all good for your kids' health at all. If you are wondering if good oral hygiene can make up for the damage sweets do to your kids, you are only putting your kids' health at stake. So, it is highly important you know how bad sweets actually are for your kids.
Tooth Decay
See that blackening of teeth in your children? This is due to the excess carbohydrate buildup in their teeth. Sweets are all about carbs – simple glucose that gets in your digestive system. However, the first point of contact in your digestive tract is the oral cavity. When that glucose with a bunch of other additives gets stuck to your teeth, they pave the way for an acidic environment. If not cleaned properly or in time, this can corrode the sensitive milk teeth in young children, leading to blackening of teeth.
Sugar Addiction
Sugar addiction is actually a thing, and it's quite troublesome. What happens is when your children consume sweets too often, a reward system gets activated in their brains. Children will feel more energetic, enthusiastic, and hypervigilant, which in turn makes them feel good for a while. That calls for a higher need to take sugar to feel that high again. When they don't have that spike again, they tend to turn agitated; some children might even lose their focus.
Note: This is not the only psychological impact taking too many sweets can have on your children’s minds. Sweets are full of colors and additives, which are known to be triggering for children with ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. In Feingold Diet, for example, any artificial colorings and preservatives are avoided to help patients stay away from the symptoms.
Diabetes Risk
Of course, eating sweets once in a while doesn't cause diabetes. However, eating too many sweets can put you at risk of getting a chronic disease. This is especially true for young children. Young children who don't do much physical activity and are stuck in the vicious cycle of eating sugary foods are at higher risk of developing diabetes type 1. This is because sweets have a high Glycemic Index (GI), which shoots up blood glucose levels. The more and more your blood glucose levels go to above normal values, the more your pancreas has to work. This may lead to problems like pancreatic insufficiency and, ultimately, diabetes.
Lack of Self Control
Apart from the side effects on physical health, eating too many sweets can damage your children's mental health as well. The uncontrolled reward system activated in the brain will make your children lose their ability to get the hang of their cravings. There will be an obvious lack of self-control in them which may lead to some issues in personality development in the longer run. If not addressed in time, your children might have trouble controlling their urges in their adult stages of life. This may put them far behind other people in terms of success and happiness. They might try to fill the void with another addiction or develop an unhealthy coping mechanism to deal with it.
Tips to Deal with It
1. Educate them about the consequences of eating too many sweets on their mental and physical health in a language and phase they understand
2. Tell them about other healthy ways to incorporate sweet food items in their life – give them fruits, for instance.
3. Encourage them positively to leave a bad habit of eating sweets so they can easily quit this habit. The stricter you are, the more difficult it is for them to leave a bad habit, and they might try hiding it from you.
4. Help them practice good oral hygiene and make them brush their teeth after every sweet item to discourage the growth of harmful bacteria in their oral cavity.
Final Word
As you can see, eating too many sweets come with undesirable consequences. From head to toe, it has its negative effects on your children, which is why you need to make sure they don't fall into the habit of doing so.
Comments