Despite being allowed sweets and fizzy drinks, I am pretty sure my kids have never had a 'sugar rush'. Does it really exist or do modern parents just think it does?

[Enid]

I cannot think of a time when my children have bounced off the walls after eating anything sugary.

Does sugar affect different children differently?

Is a 'sugar rush' a known phenomenon? I know it raises blood sugar temporarily but does that always cause children to become unmanageable?

And if it does exist, why do kids seem to grow out of it? Eg teenagers eating shite and drinking coke and seemingly never having a sugar rush, in fact finding it hard to get out of bed ?

NQC I'm in the same position as you in that both of my parents are diabetic. My grandmother and great grandmother were as well. My mother and grandmother have had it from mid forties and is not lifestyle/diet related (my dad has the old gits/overweight/not enough exercise type). DH also had 2 grandparents with it so we are VERY careful with the dcs (5 and 3).

The doctor believe I am probably "pre-diabetic". Interestingly I found that eating a GI style diet was what made me feel healthy and energetic before I knew what GI was. When I read about I had a lightbulb moment, although effectively it was what I already do anyway. The doctor also told me it was critically important for me to keep my weight within normal BMI levels.

MY DCs categorically are not allowed sweets - and have not suffered in any way whatsoever. I think that it is very important that we "set" their eating habits now in a way that sweet things are not the norm. They do eat cakes and puddings but only as part of a meal - similarly they are allowed chocolate and will often have a few squares of dark chocolate (or min-eggs or little football or whatever) but only after a meal, not in isolation. I have no intention of letting them have fizzy drinks ever - DS (5.6) has had coke once at a party and that's it. The cakes they eat are things like home made banana bread rather than high sugar things like fondant fancies.

Funnily enough the time when they get things that could give a "sugar rush" is at parties, but I suspect the mad running around and general hyper atmosphere contributes more to their behaviour than anything they eat!

It definately exists for us...I can tell when he comes back from the childminders whether she's given him biscuits or sweets or jam in his toast by the way he acts....totally hyperactive and then the crash follows soon after with arguing, moodiness and general unbearable techyness and grouchyness. It hapens to a lesser degree with fruit sugars, but is always worse if he is tired or poorly, or if combined with artificial colours or flavours or caffeine.

Of course, being five he can play on it a bit and if he's naughty excuses it by saying "it was that sweet X gave me at lunchtime". cheeky beggar!!.

I get sugar lows - were worse in pregnancy.

Anchovy, my parents were/are both heavier than they should be, and not very active. And two of my grandparents were alcoholics, which is also a trigger.

So I have reasonable hope of postponing my diabetes until I'm in my 50s. (My mom was diagnosed in her mid-40s I think.)

Well, I think my sisters/family in general thought I was a fussy mother when I declined (on behalf of my son) any sugary drinks.... until my sister came to stay with me and because her kids were having lemonade I conceded and allowed my DS to have a glass. 13 minutes later - maniacal laughter, almost Tourettes like behaviour. Shocking to see if you haven't seen it before!!. I let him have some more the next day, and that was it. My sister insisted that he be banned (ha, told you so!!) I wish he could tolerate it, it makes me feel like a mean mother. He comes home from most birthday partys in a real mess. I hope it improves as he gets older.

BTW my DD is not affected at all!!

Favourite quote by DS "Blue M and Ms make you go mad". He's probably right.

Sugar doesn't seem to effect Ds, aged 7 at all.

What does effect him is if he doesn't eat . . .then he goes mad -hyper and really badly behaved.

Sometimes, if I'm caught short without a healthy snack, I actually give him chocolate to calm him down.

A few years ago, he won a bag of luminous coloured jelly babies at a Fete and he went loopy bashing into walls and acting like he was on drugs. I think colouring is a culprit too.

I won't let him have Coke as I think the caffeine and chemicals would really tip him over the edge.

I get sugar rushes or perhaps addtive rushes now and im 19. Whenever I drink coke the sugar really gets me and i go hyper, the same with cheap squash.

ALso if i have been eating healthily and then go to the cinema and have popcorn or chocolate i have a rush in the cinema but an awful headache afterwards.

But i think it affects different children in different ways

I am sure it is a myth.

The Truth About Food point was that there is only so much sugar you can process at one go, thus no such thing as too much sugar in that respect. However, that of course ignores the effect of additives and caffeine etc. that may be in those sugary products.

Ds gets very noticeable sugar rushes and crashes and I have wondered if it is because he is not used to eating that sort of food regularly. His peers who eat sugary stuff more regularly seem to cope better with it. I don't mind the hyper running about energetic bit - it doesn't make him more silly and he seems to enjoy it - but I feel sorry for him during the crash when he gets pretty sad and tantrummy and obviously feels crap. I don't avoid him having sugar for that reason, but I do often plan ahead and think "where I am I going to be and what will my strategy be when the crash comes?"

I get a pronounced effect with sugar myself and also caffeine. People who have seen me after a cup of tea usually remember it for a while And if I want to get In The Party Mood I have a glass of lemonade which usually sends me fairly giddy.

Fand Z im like that, a cup of coffee keeps me buzzing for hours whereas mum who drinks it all day everyday it does nothing to her.

If kids dont have much sugar in their system htey dont know how to deal with the overload. I dont think its a myth I have seen the effect it has on me and the come down is awful.

When DD1 was little, she would definitely have sugar rushes if she ate or drank anything very sugary. In fact, we used to call Coke 'Conholio', because there was an episode of Beavis and Butthead where Beavis eats loads of candy and runs around saying 'My name is Conholio, I need TP for my bunghole' (you had to be there, really) but that was what DD turned into if she drank Coke. She was very good, though, and knew she wasn't allowed it and if she was ever offered it at a party she would decline (like a recovering alcoholic!)

I did give it to her once when we were at Disneyworld because it was going to be a long and busy day....

My dd does change alot when she eats chocolate.
Its quite funny to watch it really. She goes from a lovely little girl into a beast in no time.

I have to say that I've never noticed sugar rush in my kids - they are allowed to have sweets/chocolate/ice creams, but they don't eat huge quantities of them.

SIL was convinced that her ds was sent hyper by sodium benzoate in squash and lemonade

DDs(8 & 6) both react badly to sweets - shrieking and fighting and biting. Caffeine has similar effects. The most they ever get is a small can of cola between them, and that much is just about ok. We try to avoid sweets as DD2 has problems with some food colourings. Birthdays at school seem to provoke packets of sweets weekly. I wish school didn't allow it, but given that so many children have no problems with them I feel like an old killjoy.

Oh yes... DS changes significantly when he has sweets, chocolate or cola type drinks.
He hardly ever consumes these things and so I guess his tolerance is low ..

god yes it does
my 2 year old has some sprinkly type sugar decorations on a cookie the other day (masses of thm ,she had decorated it hersoef) and was wild. WILD when the sugar kicked in

I've witnessed strange hyperactive behaviour in my dd1 whenever she has Milky Bar products. I always wondered if they contain more sugar than other things or if there's something else in the ingredients to which she reacts.

I've never noticed it either. Nor in myself.

My kids don't get it but I've seen other children react very obviously to things like haribo sweets and smarties (the old ones). I never really believed it till I saw it because none of my kids react to them.

my sister came over and made fairy cakes with DD1 (age 2 at the time)
they used red food colouring (a tiny bit) to make pink icing
she bounced around the room like she was on speed for about 15 mins. unbelievable.

I'm feeling rush envy. I can drink tea or coffee before bedtime with no noticeable effect.

My spanish sil says that if you want a child to sleep well you give them something sugary before bed!

My children can be bonkers and unmanagable after a meal of organic vegetables, free range organic chicken, mineral water and fresh fruit. They can also be positively angelic after a Mc Donalds Happy meal, a Mc Flurry and a fruit shoot. I blame the parents! (hope there's an I'm joking emoticon to put after the last 4 words - bother, there isn't)

Actually, what I think is that sometimes very carefully fed children get so excited when they get sugar or colourings that they go bonkers. I'm sure mine do!