It’s a winter morning. The alarm goes off and you’re instantly rushing to get the kids fed and dressed. You’re making lunches, and packing bags and hoping you can maybe even find time to brush your own teeth before you leave for work.
Then you hear the sound that makes your heart sink: a bubbling, wet cough from your five year old. Or you see that tell-tale slime start to ooze from your toddler’s nose.
Frantically you start calculating how much carer’s leave you have left, and preparing for the old “but I had them last time they were sick” back and forth with your partner….
Most working parents can sympathise. Some parents even find that the endless round of sick days from childcare or school makes them question whether returning to work is worth it at all.
But what if reducing sugar could help?
There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that reducing your kids’ sugar intake can actually reduce the number of sick days they need.
That’s because eating too much sugar affects the body’s immune cells. This army of antibacterial cells normally roams the body looking for invading germs to kill – but too much sugar makes them lethargic and less effective.
This can mean your kids are not only more likely to get sick, but they take longer to recover from each illness.
Cutting sugar won’t remove germs from the environment. Your kids will still encounter bugs at school or daycare, but with less sugar on board, their bodies will be stronger and better placed to fight illness.
How does sugar compare to tobacco? A teaspoon of sugar or one cigarette will not harm you. But over time, the habit can be fatal. Unlike Big Tobacco, Big Sugar deliberately targets children. And added sugar has become so pervasive within the food environment that we can't avoid it even if we wanted to.
