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Sugar-Free Diets for Kids

Eliminating sugar from your child's diet can not only help with hyperactivity, but it also can assist your child in maintaining a healthy weight. Although removal of all sugar is essentially impossible, as even fruits contain some amount of sugar (via fructose), you can take some steps to significantly reduce the amount of unnatural sugar that your child consumes throughout the day.

  1. Sugar-free Diet

    • Eliminate sugar from your child's diet by not allowing your child to have sugar-heavy products, such as sugary drinks, sports drinks, candies, desserts, and pastries. Beyond obvious sources of sugar, you should also be aware of covert sources of sugars. There are a number of sugar substitutes and derivatives that product manufacturers will use, including corn syrup, fructose, dextrose, glucose, and sucrose. Possibly the largest "hidden sugar" offender is high fructose corn syrup, which can be found as a sweetener in many commercial products, including breads, cereals, muffins, and other items that you may not traditionally think of as sugary foods. Always scan the label ingredients--if either sugar or any sugar substitute appears in the first 10 ingredients, you would likely be better off looking for a lower sugar substitute for your child. Aside from eliminating sugar, aim to feed your child a diet containing plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, lean protein sources (meat and dairy items), and sources of healthy unsaturated fat (mixed nuts, seeds, and cooking oils).

    Sample Sugar-free Diet

    • Consider the following for a one day menu of healthy eating options for your child's sugar-free diet. For breakfast, serve your child several whole-grain waffles or pancakes with sugar-free syrup, along with a small bowl of fruit salad with low-fructose fruits like blackberries, apricots, peaches, plums, strawberries, and raspberries. For lunch, serve your child a sandwich prepared on whole-grain bread with lettuce, tomato, cheese, and a lean meat like chicken or turkey. Accompany this will a serving of your child's favorite vegetable. For dinner, serve your child homemade macaroni and cheese, made with whole-wheat pasta and low-fat cheese. Stir in a bag of mixed vegetables to encourage your child to increase his daily intake of healthy foods, and serve the meal with a large glass of milk. For dessert, consider serving sugar-free jello with strawberries. As a snack throughout the day, feed your child dried meats (beef jerky, for example), hard cheeses, and low-fructose fruits.

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