We
are in the midst of an epidemic that is hurting our children but that no one
seems to be talking about. It’s not caused by a virus, bite, or bacteria. It’s
caused by food. The standard American diet, aptly known as SAD, is a diet
filled with sugar, seed oils (foreign to the human body), and refined
carbohydrates, all packaged in an abundance of highly processed concoctions.
This diet is the mainstay of what most American children eat. And it’s making
them sick.
Today, 20% of American children are obese or overweight,
a number projected to reach 30% by 2030. Ten percent of children aged
two-to-five are already fat. The incidence of Type II diabetes
and ”pre-diabetes” has risen sharply in children, and 25% have fatty liver
disease, a condition previously associated with alcoholics and unheard of in
children pre-1980. It’s a new phenomenon in medical literature called
non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
These changes in child health began after 1980, following
the government’s official dietary recommendations based on the notion that
natural, animal-based saturated fat was bad and caused heart disease. To
accommodate government guidelines, food companies aka Big Food, infused their
products with more sugar and refined carbs, which were needed to make low- or
no-fat foods palatable, and they replaced saturated fats like cream, butter,
and lard with vegetable (seed) oils, touted as the healthy alternative.
What’s Wrong with SAD?
Despite the fact that there have been numerous studies,
over decades, demonstrating that sugar and vegetable oils are more harmful
than natural-sourced saturated fat, Big Food has not changed course. It
continues to use these ingredients because they are cheap and plentiful. Stripping
away fiber and nutrients from whole grains and adding chemicals, preservatives,
and dyes, Big Food makes an ever-expanding array of cereals, snacks, and
convenience foods to attract children and their parents.
It’s not just the ingredients but the processing that is
problematic, especially when the end products are both tasty and addictive.
A Newsweek cover story, titled “Toxic Foods,” sums up
the state of our American diet this way:
Foods now are “not merely processed in
the conventional sense to lengthen shelf life but often modified to
maximize flavor, visual appeal, texture, odor, and the speed with which they
are digested. These foods are made by deconstructing natural food into its
chemical constituents, modifying them, and recombining them into new forms that
bear little resemblance to anything found in nature. In other words, the
ultra-processed foods favored by a vast majority of Americans are causing us
harm.
Having discovered that sugary foods sell big, Big
Food has put sugar into foods that don’t need to be sweet, like
bread, spaghetti sauce, and yogurt, altering the American palate accordingly.
Today, 70% of packaged foods have added sugar, and even more for foods targeted
to kids! The average American child (I know none of our kids are average)
consumes 16 teaspoons of sugar per day. That’s a pound a week!
Sugar
Woes
The problems incurred by sugar exceed cavities (though
that remains a constant concern) and are numerous. Here are but a few:
·Excess
sugar overloads the pancreas, initiating a cascade of health problems,
including insulin resistance, chronic inflammation, and metabolic dysfunction,
which are the precursors of chronic illnesses of which the fatty liver disease
now seen in children is but one.
·Studies
show that sugar can have a negative impact on academic performance, learning,
and memory, as well as on hyperactivity and attention disorder. Since many
sugary foods targeted to children also contain artificial dyes – banned in
Europe but not in the United States – these problems are only exacerbated.
·A
diet high in sugars has been linked to emotional disorders, such as anxiety and
depression. Sugar consumption increases the impulse to keep eating, and over
consumption leads to changes in neurobiological brain function and subsequent
negative behaviors. (The “Twinkie defense” was used in a 1997 murder trial.)
·Dr.
Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist and a vocal advocate against sugar,
says that refined sugar “destroys or inactivates key enzymes needed for healthy
functioning of the mitochondria, known as the ‘powerhouse’ of the cell, which
create ADP, the energy needed for the overall functioning of our bodies.”
·The
introduction of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), the cheap sugar substitute
found in many processed food products, adds an additional problem by
suppressing the hormone leptin that tells us we are full and to stop eating. It
may also drive more fat to be stored in the liver.
Fat
Facts
Corn oil was introduced in the early 1900s and was used
primarily to lubricate machinery. Over time, corn and other industrial seed
oils, also known as vegetable oils – such as soy, safflower, sunflower, and
canola – began to be used for human consumption. (The seeds themselves are not
bad, only the processing of them into oils.) Today, seed oils are in almost all
processed foods as the result of the paradigm shift in the 1980s and because
they are cheaper.
Seed oils are comprised of polyunsaturated molecules,
which are highly unstable and easily oxidized to create harmful toxins called
aldehydes By the time they hit our pantry or packaged snack, convenience food,
or local restaurant, most of these oils have already been heated, made rancid
through oxidation, and then deodorized, and bleached. (The exception is if the
oil has been “cold pressed.”) The end result is a product unknown to the human
body, which many studies show may be largely responsible for the obesity
epidemic in both adults and children. These oils also contain omega-6 fatty
acids, which should not be consumed at a ratio higher than 2:1 with omega-3
fatty acids. However, given the abundance of seed oils in our food supply, we
are now consuming them at a 20-30:1 ratio. This imbalance drives inflammation
and increases inflammatory disease risk.
Are
Carbs Bad?
Carbohydrates, contained in grains, fruits, and
vegetables are an essential part of a healthful diet. Refined carbs, however,
belong in the processed food package. Whole grains have been stripped of their
nutritious outer coatings to create smoother textures and extend shelf life.
Highly processed, store-bought bread, rolls, desserts, potato chips, and other
convenience food snacks taste great but do little for us other than help us
gain weight. They have little or no nutritional value and are essentially
devoid of fiber. According to Dr. Robert Lustig, fiber is perhaps the single
most important nutrient for health because it protects the liver and feeds the
gut microbiome. As we learn more about our gut microbiome, many more
nutritionally oriented doctors and scientists agree.
So,
What Is the Gut Microbiome?
Human microbiome and “gut health” are terms we are
hearing more and more. The microbiome refers to the microbes that inhabit our digestive
tract, most of them in our large intestine, also called the colon or large
bowel. They total roughly 100 trillion fungi, viruses, and bacteria,
representing as many as 5,000 different species, and weighing
approximately almost 4.5 pounds. Our gut microbiome is a major component
of our immune system and operates from mouth to large intestine. The job of
these microbes is to fight off the bad bacteria and then do a myriad other
jobs, such as helping to synthesize
vitamins and amino acids from nutrients in our body, digest foods in our small
and large intestines, create hormones that function as neurotransmitters, and
break down fiber that feeds the gut itself. It’s an amazing self-sustaining
system – if we take good care of it.
Much is still unknown
about our microbiome, but the more we learn, the more we recognize its
tremendous role in our overall physical and mental health.
Keeping our microbiome healthy will keep us healthy. We
can do this by:
·Eating a variety of whole foods including fruits,
vegetables, legumes, and grains. These foods provide fiber and nutrients for
the microbiome as a whole, and, according to one study, may even prevent the
growth of some disease-causing bacteria. Amazing fact: the fiber our body can’t
digest is digested by
bacteria in our microbiome, which stimulates its own growth! Some high fiber
foods are raspberries, artichokes, green peas, broccoli, chickpeas, lentils,
beans, whole grain bread, bananas, and applesauce.
·Eating fermented
foods like yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir, kombucha, tempeh. Of this list,
kids may be only willing to eat yogurt, so be sure you are buying the natural
kind (no additives other than lactobacilli, no chemicals or “natural flavors”)
and ideally with no or little sugar.
·Eating pre-biotic foods, a
type of dietary fiber not digested in the small intestines but passed on to be
digested by and feed the live bacteria in the large intestines. Good sources
are chickpeas lentils, beans,
and pearled barley (with outer husk removed), toasted rolled oats, green peas,
and unripe bananas (try putting in smoothies). A new addition to this list is
“resistant starch,” which is the complex carbohydrate found in potatoes, rice,
beans, and multigrain breads. This starch should not be confused with white
bread and pasta, which are simple starches that are rapidly digested by the
stomach and small intestines into sugar. It is recommended that cooling
potatoes and rice restores some of their beneficial properties.
·Highly
processed foods, insufficient fiber, excess sugar, alcohol, and artificial
sweeteners, such as sucralose, can disrupt the microbiome. Full spectrum
antibiotics are especially harmful to the gut microbiome. In extreme cases,
excess antibiotic use can prevent a person’s ability to overcome a bacteria
known as C-diff (Clostridium difficile),
which can cause severe illness. In that case, a person may require a fecal
transplant, essentially the introduction of someone else’s healthy microbiome
into their body.
To conclude, we no longer have to worry about starvation
and food shortages, thankfully. But given the health stats affecting children,
we may be the first generation that has to be ultra-concerned about the quality
of the food our kids are eating. How we help our children enjoy the benefits of
a more healthful diet is still an open book. Sugar addiction is real.
Pizza, mac-and-cheese, ultra-processed snacks, cakes, and candy are a fact of
American life. We can’t go cold turkey and say no to their fun and food – or
our efforts may backfire. But we can begin to make progress through small
changes in our home and through education. Check the suggestions in the
sidebar. I welcome yours.
