There’s one addiction that many parents are playing a very active role in pushing their kids towards – without even realising it – and, believe it or not the addictive nature of SUGAR is easily as potent as those others that we fear so much!

I had a long chat with a great old friend at the races at Flemington last Spring Carnival – she was keen to talk about weight loss and I, as ever, keen to expand on the simple solution, which is – Lose the Sugar! 

An hilarious girl, she repeatedly dipped in to the large glass jar of mixed lollies nearby, as we spoke, laughing and berating herself, while she nodded and took in what I was saying!

But it was some time later, when my sister caught up with this same old friend, that I was sparked into action to write about it. 

She told my sister all about our chat and how she’d nodded and agreed at the time ‘but’, she said, ‘I don’t agree, MY KIDS NEED SUGAR, they’re active and non stop and they need it!”

Wow!  It struck me that this is what we’re up against. 

People have seriously been so brainwashed for so long, that in the face of awful statistics and research facts about SUGAR, a Mother would still say straight out ‘MY KIDS NEED SUGAR!’

Let’s look at it – sugar appears so rarely in wholesome, whole, real food – yep fruit, which I certainly wouldn’t deny anybody – a piece a day - whole, with all it’s fibre and other goodness to counter the fructose (the part of sugar that’s actually doing all the damage – and in fact does not provide any energy, because our body can’t process it to do so, but that’s an even longer story!)

But, all the other foods you can find sugar in (and there’s heaps of them) are generally man-made, that is, processed,  and the sugar is usually added.  (Of course fruit juices have only ‘natural sugars’, that’d be largely fructose, with none of those other good bits left!)

So, if it needs to be added to a man-made food and isn’t sitting naturally in all the good, wholesome, natural foods available, then how can we possibly justify SUGAR as something that our ‘kids need’?

Quite simply, SUGAR is highly addictive and has done enough damage already. 

We need to be on to this now – with our kids –  making every effort to send them into adulthood with a better understanding and better habits, when it comes to what they are eating. 

If we start now, inform them and fight that impulse to believe that they need it for energy, perhaps, a lifetime addiction to SUGAR and the ongoing battles that define an addiction, can be avoided.