About the future
I'm no fortune teller, but hear me out...
I saw last night something I didn’t like: a dad was in line at the supermarket. The line was 20 people deep. All he had in the basket was a pack of dark biscuits with white cream.
He was standing in line to buy junk...
✅ A SICK SOCIETY
You know what? It’s too sad not to write about this. We are a sick society. We have bought into all the marketing campaigns.
We were ignorant so we made our children addicted to junk food and we are somehow trying to make them sick and shorten their lives...
✅ AT HOME
At home, we have a zero-tolerance policy for sugar, sugary products and all sorts of processed products.
We never buy sugar, sweets, jams, confiture, bread, cereal or pastry under any shape or form.
For years, friends and grandparents have stopped bringing us sugary products. Probably, because they are afraid. 😈
We never order dessert (sugar, flour + oil) when we go to the restaurant.
We never order orange fresh juices. My kids never drink natural fresh juices or sugary sodas.
This is the way I taught them. Ever since they were babies.
Let’s face it: only children who drink sugar with a straw can become obese.
You know what? You are right: freshly-squeezed BIO orange juice has as much sugar as sugar-filled Fanta.
Fresh juices are sugar water. A lot of sugar.
✅ SURELY I AM EXAGGERATING
I know that when looking from the outside, I may seem to be exaggerating.
I may look like someone who was an obese child / teen / adult who is now exacting his revenge on all his family members and his children by drastically limiting access to sugar.
I MAY be exaggerating.
Have you heard of the concept of “it ends with me”?
✅ TASTING EXPERIENCE
When the time is “right”, we will go with the kids for “something sweet”.
It’s not something we planned. Our kids never ask for something sweet. We don’t have it inside the house anyway.
We don’t have it inside the house because we never buy junk food.
Whether it’s about an eclair or ice-cream, we always choose the best place in town and we always have the best culinary experience.
✅ RULES
The rule is simple: If it’s about ice cream, we all have a cup each. If it’s about ecaires, we will go 50/50 each.
Repeating this rule will hopefully set the adequate mental rule:
something sweet will only appear occasionally and it’s only a good opportunity for a very nice culinary experience;
we never eat sweets because we are hungry;
The truth is I never hear my kids saying “I want something sweet”. However, I can hear them say:
“When can we go for a hamburger / sushi meal / some movie popcorn?”
We simply don’t have this habit of eating sweets when we are hungry.
Eric (7.5 years old) never eats pastries or sweets when we attend parties. No one forbids him from doing it.
Last time he only ate the meat on the pizza. After the party, he asked for us to go have some skinless sausages (“mici”).
We wanted to get some skinless sausage meat from a specific place, but let’s face it – Terasa Obor has the best skinless sausages.
Last time, he had 7 of them.
✅ MODERATION
These are the rules, pure and simple. Ever since they were born. Not something new.
This is normal for us.
Every year we set ourselves a new objective: go to a different a capital. Last year we spent 5 days in Vienna, this year we spent 5 days in Paris.
What we want is for our kids to be able to distinguish between something sophisticated and something else, no matter where we go for sweets; so let’s distinguish between:
refined sweets
Junk food (sugar, flour, oil, margarine, food dyes).
✅ SUGAR FREE
Ever since they were babies, I have brought onto them the sugar-free religion: sugar-free sodas, sugar-free wafers, sugar-free protein bars, sugar-free pudding, sugar-free ice ceam, sugar free chocolate. Everything that is sugar-free.
My kids have a sort of latest generation radar: they already know how to scan supermarket shelves, they can read product labels and can immediately identify adequate products.
It’s 2024. If you are still eating products that contain sugar when there are so many sugar-free alternatives, then something must be wrong.
Of course not every product in a supermarket with a sugar-free label on it is truly sugar-free.
Actually, 99% of sugar-free products in a supermarket do contain sugar, it’s just that sugar is disguised under a different name and is part of a sinister marketing campaign.
✅ 75% PROBABILITY
Did you know that a child with obese parents has a 75% chance to become obese himself?
You’ll say it’s about “genetic predispositions”.
I know, this was also my excuse for decades – until I started studying nutrition properly, that is.
✅ INHERITANCE
Actually, children inherit THE HABITS of the parents. They go to bed late, they have daily access to sweets, bread, sodas, cereal…
It’s very simple:
Monkey See - Monkey Do.
The parents are the best examples for their children.
✅ SINCE CHILDHOOD
I remember I used to go to school every day and buy some pretzels, a bottle of Coca-Cola and a chocolate croissant on the way.
You know, like the Magic / Chipicao / 7Days “generation”.
Millions of people who were denied access to “delicious stuff” for decades during communism, immediately pounced like hungry, hungry hippos on the supermarket shelves filled with “goodies”.
I remember after buying bread for home, I used to eat one loaf on the spot, another half of a loaf of bread on my way home and another half in the evening. And another loaf of bread the next day.
Yes, I know. You probably never did something like this, I was probably the exception: a fatty who couldn’t control himself…
✅ THERE WAS NO EDUCATION BACK THEN
There was just the hunger and craving for new tastes and flavors.
All of a sudden we had pretzels, pastries, bubble gum, Coca-Cola and Fanta, chocolate bars, candies, Santal and Pfanner (finally some natural juice – we thought – it was actually full of sugar), McD’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, chips…
Every party we attended was a new opportunity to stuff ourselves. On every table at the party there was cake (made of sugar, flour, margarine) and Coca Cola.
Our parents fell for the trick. We followed their example and the results are visible.
✅ “BUT HOW DID YOU ALL GROW UP?”
This is probably the eternal question of every parent (nowadays grandparent) when you try to give your children a better life and come up with “revolutionary” ideas such as:
“Cereal / bread / sugar / homemade sweets are not healthy.”
A lot of parents who ask for our help have this story: hitting a brick wall in the relationship with their parents.
Stories about grandparents satisfying all the grandkids’ whims under the pretext:
“The child craves”.
Grandparents secretly offering their grandchildren sweets.
There are sick, diabetic grandparents, with high blood pressure, fatty livers and tens of extra kilograms of weight who are deciding the future of your children.
✅ HOW DID WE GROW UP?
We stuffed ourselves.
Romanians consume double the quantity of sugar UK citizens consume: CLICK.
Romanians consume on average 100 kilos of potatoes (CLICK) and 100 kilos of bread (CLICK) per capita yearly.
51% of Romania’s adult population is overweight. 20% of these overweight people are obese: CLICK.
In the past 12 years, the number of overweight and obese children has gone up 5 times! You read that right: 5x over the past 12 years!
So today at least 30% of school children are overweight, with a considerable proportion of them being obese: CLICK.
Over 12% of adults are diabetic and 18% of them have pre-diabetes (so they will get diabetes in the future): CLICK.
Perhaps you already know the golden rule…
For every person diagnosed with diabetes there is another person with undiagnosed diabetes.
So, following this line of thought, we have 12% of people with diagnosed diabetes + 12% undiagnosed diabetics + 18% of people with pre-diabetes.
I’ll let you do the math.
I don’t even want to scratch the surface of the stats about cancer and cardiovascular disease because I don’t want to (totally) ruin your day.
✅ LONG STORY SHORT
The health and future of your children lies in your choices.
Persuade your partner that making a change towards better nutrition is worth it. Start educating the grandparents ASAP, because it will take years.
I believe it’s our only chance for a normal future for our children.
We cannot really blame our parents for the situation we are in…
…but our children will definitely be able to blame us, because unlike our parents, we have access to quality information but we choose to ignore it.
Thank you for your attention.