Editor’s Note: This is a snippet from Jan’s book along with a graph from Ellyn Satter that illustrates her point. In her book, Jan provides meal mapping exercises and samples for further explanation. This information demonstrates the impact sugar and carbs can have on your young learner.
Let’s begin with Ellyn Satter, an authority on feeding infants and children. In her book, Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense, she talks about food balancing, and the staying power from eating when the meal or snack is high in sugar, starch, protein, or fat. She provides the reader with a series of charts that illustrate how quickly a child feels satisfied after eating certain foods and using a time line, she shows when they will be hungry again.
The first graphs shows the satisfaction from consuming a sugar-only meal, or snack. The satisfaction response is quite fast, because sugar enters into the bloodstream very quickly with little or no digestion required. It causes an increase in blood glucose. Looking at the graph, you see the instant surge of satisfaction drop down just as quickly as it shoots up. The child who has eaten a sugar-only snack or meal will soon be hungry and may even become unmanageable as a result of it.
The second graph shows the satisfaction from consuming a sugar and starch meal or snack. The satisfaction response is slightly slower than sugar, only because the starch has to be digested before it can be absorbed into the bloodstream. However, the staying power is limited (around twice that of sugar), and the child will soon be hungry. And, if this is an active child (what child isn’t?), it will even be shorter.
The third graph shows the satisfaction from consuming sugar, starch, and a protein. Adding a protein to a snack or meal makes it last longer. It takes awhile for the protein to be satisfying, because it has to be broken down into amino acids before it can be absorbed into the bloodstream. It has about three times the staying power of a sugar-only meal or snack.
The final graph illustrates the satisfaction from consuming sugar, starch, protein, and fat. The presence of fat in a snack or a meal slows down the rate in which the whole meal is used. Fat retards the emptying of the stomach. It makes the meal stay around considerably longer. In fact, if you look at the change, it has well over six times the staying power of a sugar-only meal or snack.
She’s Eating Junk, So She’s Humdrum Hannah is Jan’s new children’s book. Visit Jan’s website, nutritionforlearning.com to learn more.
Tomorrow’s Child / September 2016 / p 25
