Have your kids ever suffered from a sugar hangover?
Is Sugar Harming Your Family Health?
If you’ve got a few hours to kill, head on over to Youtube and search “kids sugar high.” I was shocked to have found that there are 50+ videos that people posted of children jacked up on sugar. Surely resulting in a sugar hangover the next day.
Well, I must confess, my husband and I videotaped our daughter last year after she gorged on some of her Halloween loot. She wasn’t running around with bounds of excess energy. No…instead…she was rolling around on the floor, groaning, feeling like she was going to vomit, and blaming us for letting her eat all that candy which resulted in a sugar hangover!
I know…not the best example of family health!
We don’t usually have candy in the house but we couldn’t quite (at least, not yet) bring ourselves to be the only family in our neighborhood, perhaps city, maybe country, who held back the candy on Halloween.
So we tried reasoning with her. We tried restricting her. Eventually, we let her have a natural consequences approach to Super Bowl of sugar…wow!
Sugar, also known as:
white sugar, brown sugar, raw sugar, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, high fructose corn syrup, malt syrup, maple syrup, pancake syrup, fructose sweetener, liquid fructose, honey, molasses, anhydrous dextrose, crystal dextrose and dextrin.
Is in everything your kids will be bringing home with them on Halloween night.
Will Sugar Take Over Your Child?
There is a lot of research about the damaging effects of sugar. If you want to learn more, check out these articles:
Harmful Effects of Excess Sugar
The Harmful Effects Of Sugar On Mind And Body
I don’t know if your children are similar to my daughter and will go crazy with the candy on Halloween night? This year I am hoping that a viewing of last year’s video will help bring back some of the unpleasant associations she had with candy after her binge last year.
But…if they do and you want don’t want to deal with a sugar hangover the next day, check out the tips below for 5 easy ways to help the sugar hangover your kids are likely to have.
Tip #1: START THEM OFF RIGHT
Halloween could be the most exciting holiday for kids. What could be better than dressing up, staying up late and getting huge amounts of free candy?
Yes, it is a magical time. Who doesn’t get caught up in their kids excitement for the holiday, bringing back some, oh so happy, memories.
But…in order to help prevent the sugar hangover the next day that will affect the whole family, getting them to eat a balanced dinner of protein, veggies and healthy fat goes a long way.
Nothing fancy but something good. Try grass-fed beef tacos (recipe here), or a veggie-filled frittata, you could even make it very easy and have breakfast for dinner such as antibiotic, hormone free, pastured bacon and eggs with a simple salad.
Whatever healthy meal you make. It will help fuel them through the hours of trick-or-treating and set their body up properly for the influx of sugar to come.
Tip #2: HYDRATE
Similar to an alcohol hangover, hydration is a major factor in helping the body process all that sugar. Get them to drink a good amount of clean water the next day and their little bodies will be thanking you for it. For an extra boost, add a little fresh lemon to bring some alkalizing hydration back to their little cells.
Tip #3: PROTEIN FOR BREAKFAST, LUNCH AND DINNER
Seriously. Make sure to fuel your child with clean, healthy protein the next day. The sugar in candy is mostly fructose and sucrose which gets converted into glucose in the body resulting in instant energy, the “sugar-high”. A release of insulin lowers blood sugar as it converts it to energy.
Once the body has used up all the glucose, it crashes. With this crash comes triggers for hunger and more sugar – read – whining, mood fluctuations and the dreaded HANGRY!
Protein can help end this cycle because the body will break it down slowly providing a sustained energy.
So instead of them reaching for their bag of candies for breakfast, make sure they have a good, balanced breakfast; eggs, bacon, grass-fed cheese or yogurt or leftover tacos from dinner 🙂
Tip #4: GET THEM MOVING
Movement will lift their mood as well as get things moving in their body. Sugar suppresses the immune system but exercise increases metabolism, therefore, processing sugar faster. Exercise can also increase the immune system and will return the body to a more balanced state by helping to process all that excess insulin that was released.
A study comparing the sugar response in children and adults showed that the adrenaline levels in children remained ten times higher than normal for up to five hours after a test dose of sugar [1. http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/feeding-eating/family-nutrition/sugar/harmful-effects-excess-sugar]
Tip # 5: SWAP IT OUT
This seems to be becoming more popular, in health aware families. Give your kids the option to have a set number of candies and then swap the rest of them out for a toy, activity, item of clothing, or family outing. The more creative you are, the better.
This has worked in our house for the past few years and our kids are actually looking forward to the surprise they are going to get this year (a family outing to see Hotel Transylvania 2 in the theatre).
As the excitement of Halloween approaches. Be proactive in helping your children deal with the copious amounts of sugar that is going to end up in their body. Fuel them well, keep them hydrated, get them moving outdoors and limit the amount of sugar they can consume. This will result in happier kids the next day, which is good for overall family health.
Let me know in the comment section below, what strategies do you use in your house during Halloween to keep your family healthy?
