Are You Raising Snackers?

"Parents are raising a generation of snackers — kids who eat almost constantly throughout the day as they graze on cookies, salty snacks and fruit drinks.
A sweeping study of 31,337 children and adolescents released on Tuesday tracked snacking and meal trends from 1977 through 2006 using data from four national surveys. On average, children reach for cookies, chips and other treats about three times a day, consuming nearly 600 daily calories from snacks. That’s an increase of 168 snack calories compared with what children ate in the late 1970s.
While these are averages, the findings showed that half of American children snack about four times a day. And some children appear to be eating almost constantly, consuming either snacks or meals as often as 10 times a day..."

The above is taken from this article by Tara Parker-Pope published in the New York Times on Tuesday, March 9, 2010.

This is bad news, folks.

If this sounds like your family, it's time to take control of the situation NOW.

Moms, you have the ability, the responsibility to shape your children's eating habits. I have children who love fruit, enjoy salads, and happily eat most vegetables. They are perfectly happy drinking water and do not expect dessert every night.

You can do it too.

The younger your children, of course the more difficult it will be, but you just start with babysteps. Meaning, just make one change at a time, little by little.

Example: Your children habitually drink juice, soda, or any other drink besides water daily. So, just increase the amount of water they need to drink before they get the other drink. And limit the number of those per day. If you drink soda, limit the number per day or days per week, whatever would be a decrease for you. Then keep the habit up.

When you are drinking the proper amount of water (1/2 your body weight in ounces), a few things will happen. Besides finally being hydrated which helps relieve many symptoms-including things like headaches, asthma, skin problems----you name it, YOUR APPETITE WILL DECREASE.

This is key. Many of us are mistaking thirst for hunger and eat when we are actually thirsty. Drink enough water, and you will not have as much desire for snacking.

Besides drinking enough water, there are 2 main changes to make:

1. Switch from unhealthy (chips, cookies) snacks to healthy (fruit, veggie sticks) ones
2. Break the habit of eating when you don't need to. If you eat a nutritious meal, you will not be genuinely hungry an hour later.
   

You can do this. You can change your (and your children's) snack habits. Take back the control of the health of your family!

What Happens To Your Body Within An Hour Of Drinking A Coke

Did you ever see the movie Innerspace with Martin Short and Dennis Quaid? It's a great classic movie. These guys get shrunk down and enter a person's body, their ship flowing along with the red blood cells. You get to see some of what goes on in there; as someone who loves learning about the human body I found it fascinating. It's also just a great flick.



Most of us don't think about what's going on in there as we go about our day to day life. But the things we do really do impact us, right away, for better or for worse.

I came across this description of what happens in your body after drinking a soda. Consider it a journey of sorts. Unfortunately, it's not nearly as humorous as the movie.

What Happens To Your Body Within An Hour Of Drinking A Coke, According to the Nutrition Research Center

In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down. (By the way, phosphoric acid steals calcium from your bones. Hello, osteoporosis)

20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)

40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.

45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.

>60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.

>60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.

>60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

Of course, now your sluggishness and irritability causes you to consider.....having another one. Sound like fun?

Then again, after watching this classic commercial from 1971, those warm fuzzy feelings you will have are very convincing. It even makes me want to have one. Who wouldn't want to join those happy folks? This is my earliest Coke memory.

And here's how far they've come...

I'm not perfect. I'm not going to pretend that I never drink soda. But not every day, or even every week. If you drink this stuff on a regular basis....well, think about it.

By the way, this is what happens with a regular, sugar-filled soda. With a sugar-free "diet" soda, there's a whole other bunch of bodily reactions to that poison. By the way, artificial sweeteners besides being poisonous, actually will cause you to eat more, usually causing you to gain weight, which defeats the probable reason you chose to drink a "diet" soda to begin with. But that's a subject for another post :0

For more great info about soda you can go here.