Gwyneth Paltrow and avoiding carbs for kids - what do you think?

[JaneGMumsnet]

Hi,

You may have read news stories today about Gwynneth Paltrow avoiding carbs for the whole family, including her children aged eight and six:

"Sometimes when my family is not eating pasta, bread or processed grains like white rice, we're left with that specific hunger that comes with avoiding carbs."

We'd be interested to hear what you think about this story.

Does your own diet influence the way you feed your children?

Thanks,

MNHQ

i think this is more about the sugar in food - like others have said.

Low carbing is actually all about the sugars really when you have done some reading on it.

What i don't think anyone should do, is follow celebrity eating at all.

They are clearly all in a seperate rich bubble where most people adore them and money is no fucking object

actually, there are many families - many many many families - going to foodbanks - and i doubt the fact that they are eating sugar filled soup from a tin is bothering them one bit.

i mean if shes mad enough to bring out a book on it or something - then shes lost the plot, but AFAIAC this is purely celeb gossip and not ver like HQ at all

Ah ok I see biwi these are natural sugars though so we don't mean sugary drinks, sweets and processed foods then?

It doesn't make any difference - the body treats all sugar in the same way.

All carbs = sugar as far as the body is concerned

But surely if my kids are eating sugars as part of a varied diet Nd not eating sweets and drinks then the sugar they are eating is good, if they are active and burning them off. I have always seen these as fuel needed to grow learn and be active, is this not right then. My dd does sport every day and I always thought a diet containing these foods where necessary for active children.

Obviously children need energy. But they don't need masses of easily accessible/digestible carbs - none of us does. So keep white bread/pasta/rice consumption and sugar consumption generally to a minimum. Certainly don't base your diet around them.

Carbs for all of us should be coming mainly from vegetables and salad, with some fruit (but not too much).

We all need fat for energy - good fats like butter and olive oil. Don't be frightened of buying full fat foods.

And protein is really important for developing/growing bodies.

1. Eat food.
2. Not too much.
3. Mostly plants.

Personally I think that the best way to bring children up vis a vis food is to expose them to lots of variety and not subject them to diets. The majority of people I know who have problematic attitudes to food (over weight, faddy eaters, strange obsessions etc.) had dieting mums, and grew up dieting themselves. Most people I know who are fit and healthy and normal weight don't think about food nearly as much.

It is MrsSham - ignore it all. Nooka has the right attitude. You should be able to go to any restaurant or hotel and order a meal from the menu, if you have to have endless discussions about which meal you can actually eat, or you order by saying 'I will have x but can you do it without the y' then it is faddy eating.
Whoever is writing books at the moment and is 'flavour of the month' will probably be replaced by someone completely different in 5years time. Much better to eat everything in moderation which is what the very elderly people that I know( those who have lived to over 100) have done.
Google the healthy food plate.
No one is mentioning cost! A 6 foot university student cooking for the first time on a limited budget and has plenty of exercise is going to need to fill up on plates of pasta or lots of potatoes etc.
Food is a fuel - you should be able to cook family meals and have the whole family eat them (unless they have medical problems).

My 6ft university son goes off to the halal butcher round the corner from his digs and buys very cheap chicken. Even by his own admission it's probably not reared in the best welfare standards, but it is possible to eat well for not very much money if you know where to buy.

I think that they all find the cheap deals very quickly when they are spending their own money!

Ah but exotic ...eating out Is different....and I have exactly what I fancy if I eat out. Even though most of the time I am low carbing. Thing is there is now a lot of research backing up this way if eating BUT it's what you do most f the time which matters. I have no truck with stressing about a restaurant menu.....if I fancy fish and chips I will have them. I agree it's mad to be worrying about going out to eat.......that should be an enjoyable affair. I have heard some people say that they no longer like chips etc and ask for them to be left off but I personally haven't reached that stage.....not that I am likely to eat out in the near future.

I agree you have to be sensible and there are always "flavours if the month". I won't be bothering with Gwynnie's book but I will continue to experiment with lower carb foods and follow the Briffa book which is based on sound evidence. His blog is very good too.....and it doesn't mean excluding carbohydrates at all. Just reducing them for health reasons. I don't think it is any coincidence that over the past forty years we have had significant health issues with obesity and diabetes at the same time as we have pushed high carb and low fat diets. The body breaks down fat completely differently from carbohydrate. I consider I now eat as nature intended....most of the time.

Each to their own though....if people here can eat processed carbs or unprocessed carbs with no problems then that's great. I can't do that to the same level.....interestingly since I reduced the carbs in DS's diet he has stopped his evening binges (he is autistic) and that IS significant in this house. I am basing his evening meals around protein and lower carb vegetables and a small portion of pots or rice. He is more settled.

i eat low carb and low calorie and have lost a lot of weight and feel great for it and i found it has helped me loose that sweet tooth that has been with me for years .( i have their easter eggs in already and before i would ended up eating and replacing)

But my dc do not they eat a standard diet with all food groups and yes that includes sweets and chocolate and cake

exotic

only thing i can not/will not eat when out is Gluten and thats not me being fussy it is medically diagnosed

rest meh if i fancy it ill have as a treat

I have dieted all my adult life (I have never been terribly overweight-just a bit 'too well padded') and I tried everything going-you name it and I read it. I lost and gained again.
Three years ago I changed my attitude and decided to change my eating habits for life. After a while it becomes second nature, I no longer crave sweet things etc. My body is used to it-if I do eat too much of the wrong thing I immediately feel quite sluggish. I feel much healthier and full of energy. The joy of it is that I don't need to read anything- a lifetime of it has given me the basic principles-I just eat less-cut out the processed (as much as possible) and exercise more. I don't need to discuss it, or request special food.

But my dc do not they eat a standard diet with all food groups and yes that includes sweets and chocolate and cake

They need that to self discipline-if the parent has the strict control they don't learn to do it themselves. They learn to binge when they get the opportunity.

And having managed to give up all the books I am not about to start reading the latest fashionable one-he will only be there until someone new topples him!

I think this is quite typical of what most people in this country feed their kids....is it balanced - is this moderation?

Processed cereal with milk and juice
White ham sandwich, packet of crisps, chocolate bar and orange juice
Chocolate bar/sweet after school
Chicken nuggets, beans or peas or sweetcorn and smiley faces

He's been going quite a while exotic and I do t consider myself to be "on a diet" it's just that I am feeling well with this way of eating and am losing weight.....which I need to lose...that's all.

I have ditched diets quite frankly, they don't work and are based on an unhealthy way of eating. No my doet wasn't balanced before....you could argue it isn't balanced now but I feel very very well and for the first time ever I am not gaining weight and feeling exhausted.

You do what works for I do what works for me it doesn't make either way wrong or faddy or dangerous.

Anyway...am off this thread now..GP is very faddy and no doubt next year her kids will be fed differently.

'Low carb' is not 'no carb'. No adult needs to eat processed carbs - it is not a dietary requirement. Children don't need to either, but if they are burning off lots of energy then a little wont do them any real harm - but it's best if 90% of it comes from 'real' food - not white bread, white pasta & 'junk'. I agree that it's a bit joyless for kids if they can't have any junk (crisps, cake, sweets) but they certainly don't 'need' it and shouldn't be having the vast quantities that most children in the UK are having.

A few months ago I would have agreed with Exotic & others who say if you are at an ideal weight then simply cutting back on what you eat and exercising more is probably 'good enough' - but most people doing that do feel hungry a lot and deprived and certain foods are still not good for you, no matter what your weight.

I would suggest that everyone reads Dr John Briffa's book 'escape the diet trap' whether you need to lose weight or not - it's really eye opening & informative - what harm can it do to read it and then decide what you think? Most libraries have copies.

I now eat a low carb diet and that gives me about 30g of carb a day, mostly from veg. I'm a vegetarian and I'm not eating my body weight in cheese or cream - so anyone who has the meat/cream/cheese original version of a 'no/low carb diet/Adkins' in mind when they read/hear 'low carb' couldn't be further from the reality if they tried .

I love that I'm not constantly hungry as I was when eating a carb heavy diet - I couldn't seem to feel satisfied no matter how much pasta or whatever I ate. Which is what I think GP was referring to - that you feel actually hungry around the time another meal is 'due', but you don't get that constant 'I need' feeling that most people get with a carb rich diet.

Now that I eat low carb, I don't 'crave' anything and my 'health indicators' are much better.

The point about carbs in junk food and in pasta etc is that they tend to be a fairly nutrient free product. You get very little goodness in them. They fill you up but not a lot else. Most British families eat masses of carbs and not much of other foods. Most British women eat far too little meat and are short of iron too. So moving to fewer carbs tends to be a good plan given how most of them eat, day in day out, biscuits, cakes at work in the afternoon, chocolate machines at stations. It is an all day long assault on people. Even all these supposedly healthy breakfast cereals tend to be loads of carb, no protein and a ton of sugar, even fruit juices - full of fructose.

I am not sure eating out is some kind of nirvana. One reason many people are as fat as a pig is because they eat out more and more and portion sizes are double what they need and they have no idea what is in the food, whereas if you cook it yourself you know.

I wouldn't call that a healthy, balanced diet snoworneahva.

Do they really snow?

Most people I know cook properly at least once a day. If you look on MN on any meny planner thread, most of us are cooking most nights. Yes, there are carbs, but it's all home made delicious stuff.

snow - no, that's not what most people feed their kids at all! Once a week, perhaps, but not as a rule, no.

DS will typically eat ready brek or porridge for breakfast (+fruit), something like peanut butter in brown bread, raisins and a yoghurt for lunch (chocolate/crisps are for the weekend) and will have potatoes and chicken, or spag bol or something along those lines for tea.