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Last Updated: Feb 6, 2017 - 2:32:04 PM |
 Oh joy, oh joy, oh joy! The kids are back in school. The roads are clearer until 3pm, the food stores are quiet, the house is quiet, and the family pets are resting too. This annual return to pleasant days and ordered family times is habitually a welcomed time of year for so many. I can understand that, having been around the return to school over the years with my four, now grown up children. But along with the return comes the challenges too. These will include the morning sleepy heads, the coaxing and cajoling to get them “up and at em.”
All children have their own needs, like their own wardrobe, their own books and carry bags, and their own preferences for hair and facial needs which require, in most households, a time of quiet for each of them in front of the mirror. Sometimes when the morning is intense the quiet structured family life soon yields to the apparent chaos of one or two anxious children unable to find or order their own perceived needs right now, immediately.
When chaos breaks out, and stress mars the family unity, all suffer. The children push and shove, and the shrieking of young high octave voices pierce the quiet morning air. The ticking clock doesn't rest. Time marches on and the tension mounts, then someone says “What's for breakfast?”
Morning hunger is pre set by the rise in stress hormones called cortisol. Cortisol and insulin rise in the morning to get you revved up and get the sugar in our body across into the cells for energy.
Those in the know will be aware of the high incidence of “sugar” in our nation here in the Caribbean. To put the problem of diabetes into perspective here is a shocking bit of revelation.
What we all must know is that the average adult human body carries about one imperial gallon of blood. That might be about five liters of blood carried in circulation all of the nurturing sugar goodies to every cell within your body. All of our food is turned into sugar, and we must know that insulin can only carry one type of sugar into the cell and that one kind of sugar is glucose. Now you know that fructose or maltose or mannose or any other “ose” will not do, they aren't the right sugars for our cells. So we may go hungry for the right sugar even though we have eaten a lot of the wrong sugars.
Now here is the great news, “within all of our blood, within the whole of the imperial gallon of the body's blood, at any one time, there can only be one teaspoon of glucose for all of our body's cellular sugar energy needs.” And furthermore should we let the level of one teaspoon of blood sugar rise up to one tablespoon of sugar within that same gallon of blood, we die! One gallon of blood, one teaspoon of glucose sugar and if one tablespoon, then death ensues. So insulin is a rather overworked hormone and we are the ones that are doing it.
Let's go back to the scene of the chaos of the school morning. “What is for breakfast?” Cereal? Toast? Sure the student's insulin is on a morning high and the low blood sugars are changing the child into a wanting animal; they are orchestrating the chaos in response to personal brain signals, for they are in need.
Most parents have figured out a way around the immediate problem of quieting the children for the short term. Sugar in its quickly digestible form will quiet the beast. But later... after drop-off to school, the children will begin to get the “nods” that will come from a rush of sugar dropping off. But that isn't the problem of the parent, is it? For the parent has gone off to work or to do the shopping. Or they have returned to the quiet and the sanctuary of the home. When the student's poor performance is later noted because of the low grades, it becomes the lazy student that is the disappointment, never the parent's failure to provide and nourish the children.
Did you know that in 1700 the average man ate just 4 pounds of sugar per year? By 1800 that amount was 20 pounds, and by 1900 a whopping 100 pounds for the year. Today it is down to 77 pounds, but remember only one teaspoon can be tolerated in the blood at any one time and it must be glucose to be fuel. Any sugar that isn't used is converted in the liver to fat.
Got a fat child that is struggling socially and academically? One that is disruptive and hard to keep focused? Only their sugar eating will bring the blood chemistry into a realm of tolerance and nourishment.
Want to help your child get the school grades and the social skills on the up rise? Feed them. Feed them reliably and responsibly. Throw out the cereals (there are over 2000 patented sugary breakfast cereals) and throw out the juice and the milk, or limit them to a few mere ounces at a serving. The sugar in them is near as high as sodas, which is about 10 teaspoons for 12 ounces. Jack up the sugar and lose the organs, the heart, the kidney and the pancreas, to say nothing of the concentration.
So what to do? Well why not feed the student an egg in the morning. Cheap, like 25 cents. Boil and peel them and if really serious pickle them for the rush out guys that will pop the whole thing into his mouth as he does up his shirt and uniform. Nothing says he cannot have leftovers for breakfast either or be a star and have it packed in Tupperware for his lunch. School lunches are still suspect, as they are mostly sugar too. Pasta and sauce is mostly sugar.
Want to get your blood sugar the highest? Eat a baked potato. Want to get it up the fastest then eat a rice cake or even boiled white rice. Simple choices would allow us to change the white potato to a sweet potato which is so very much less stressful to the metabolism. Throw out the white potatoes.
If you go to the fast food outlet and order a hamburger and fries, then you should go to the Dr. next and have your head examined. Order a sugary drink with your burger then lie on the floor right there and have yourself transported to emergency for you are one sick puppy. If that is how you are behaving, then remember children 'learn what they live'. Let your children order like that, and you should be going to social welfare and giving them up from your care.
Besides who has the money to throw down on the counter to trade for a pound of their sugar for your eight or ten bucks? Sugar is cheap and it can only make cheap food.
So feed the children, and yourself and loved ones. Feed them well, and always you will end up with a better child; a stronger and straighter one too. And, in the morning when they rise easier and behave better and you are laughing with them and not yelling, it is then all worthwhile. Let me know if it isn't so please.
About the author:
Dr. Brian Blower has been a licensed
chiropractor for over 40 years
practicing Applied Kinesiology and has been in private practice on
Grand Bahama Island for the past
15 years. He is a founding member of Applied Kinesiology Canada and was
educated at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College. He is a founding
member of the Bahamas Association of Chiropractic. He has treated
many celebrities and also specializes in sports medicine. He can be
reached at 242-351-5424/ 727-2454. You
can also find Dr. Blower on Facebook HERE
Feel free to contact Dr. Blower with any of your questions or comments at BodyByBlower@yahoo.com
Read other articles by Dr. Blower
© Copyright 2013 by thebahamasweekly.com
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