Children need to eat health food for health and growth

Giving your child a breakfast that contains fiber (such as oatmeal, shredded wheat, berries, bananas, or whole-grain pancakes) should keep adrenaline levels more constant and make the school day a more wondrous experience. Packing her or his lunch box with delicious, fiber-containing treats (such as whole-grain breads, peaches, grapes, or a myriad of other fresh fruits) may turn afternoons at home into a delight.

Refined sugars also affect insulin control, which decides how much fat they will store for the rest of their lives. As a child, I had HoHos, Twinkies, and Ding Dongs as regular parts of my meals because my mother, like so many of that era, wanted to give her children a nice treat. We both shudder now to think of it.

Sugar is not just found in sweets or junk cereal. It's in almost everything. When you look at labels, you find sugar, sucrose, glucose, dextrose, sorbitol, or corn syrup on almost every label. The more simple meals from whole foods contain much less sugar.

Fruit juices contain lots of simple sugar without much fiber. Many people think of juices as health foods. This simply isn't true. In small quantities they are fine, but they are mainly a way to get many of the calories and some of the nutrients from a substance, without getting as full and without getting the needed fiber. One study has shown that children who drink more than 12 ounces of fruit juice per day are shorter and fatter than those who don't.