16 // Can my kids have soda?
Can my kids have soda?
How to talk about soft drinks and sugar-sweetened beverages with children.
In today's episode, we are featuring a message from a sweet mom, Sarah, who chimed in to ask a question about how to handle soda with her kids.
Ashley loves getting listener-submitted questions, like this, so thank you Sarah for submitting this message. You can send Ashley a voice memo here.
In this episode, Ashley walks families through how to make decisions around what your family's approach is to things like soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages. Ashley challenges you as the parent and nutritional gatekeeper to identify what your family may be doing or need to begin doing with their beverage choices from the perspective of building healthy habits. Lastly, Ashley shares sample dialogue on how you might want to approach talking about things like soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages with you kids. This gets to the bottom of Sarah's question: How do we talk about these with our kids in a way that doesn't give them emotional value or label them good, bad, unhealthy, healthy, but instead equips our kids to handle sugar-sweetened beverages.
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Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
[00:00:00] Hey friend today's episode, we are featuring a message from a sweet mom, Sarah, who chimed in to ask a question about how to handle soda with her kids. I'll share the message with you guys after the intro. So you can hear it from Sarah herself, but I love getting messages like this from you guys. And I'm excited to get to dive in to the subject of talking about.
[00:00:21] Some of the ways that I encourage you as a family to make decisions around what your family's approach to things like soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages might be as well as what is your family doing from a healthy habit perspective? Is this a lifestyle approach that's consistent with your family values and the health goals that you want to be setting for your family?
[00:00:44] And lastly, we'll get really to the bottom of her question and talking about. What can of dialogue do you have around soft drinks and soda and other foods that can sometimes feel a little bit forbidden? How do we talk about these with our kids in a way that doesn't give them emotional value or label them good, bad, unhealthy, healthy, but instead help equip our kids to understand what your specific families approach to soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages.
[00:01:15] Hey, mama, I'm Ashley, and welcome to the veggies. And for two podcast in this podcast, you will find simple menu ideas, kitchen, organizational systems spelled out from on life and feeding tips and tricks that are both evidence-based and grace placed. I believe that you can find flexibility when it comes to feeding your family so that you can feel calm, capable, and connected in the kitchen as a registered dietician and Christian mom of three myself, and want you to break free from the mealtime battles and to feel.
[00:01:40] Feeding your kids all day long, pull up a stool at my kitchen counter. And let me pour you a cup of coffee and say a quick prayer for you. It's time to chat about the mealtime messes moments in ministry of motherhood.
[00:01:54] Hey Ashley, this is Sarah. I'm a long time follower and have loved. Teen all of your strategies that you have taught me over the years and they have worked amazing for my family. So thank you so much for everything that you have taught me. This question is for the future I have a three-year-old and a seven month old, but how do you talk about.
[00:02:18] Soft drinks, just like candy. I don't want to put them on a pedestal so that they obsess over them or sneak them whenever they're older. But you know, whenever we go out to eat, I love my Dr. Pepper and my husband gets his sweet tea, but at home we drink water. You know, eventually my kids are going to wonder, you know what, we're drinking.
[00:02:43] You know, we have it in moderation, just like desserts. So how do you talk about it? How do you, what is your approach with soft drinks? Okay. So I love when you guys send me these messages, this is really a great way for me to just hear things as it exactly presents itself in your brain and in your life and in your situation.
[00:03:03] And so I appreciate this mom. The subject of soft drinks that because it can be a very sticky subject and it's one that dieticians can get on a soap box about. And so I don't want to do that as much as possible today. Really what I want to walk you through is helping you to understand where I would suggest you begin processing through how you want to make a decision about.
[00:03:23] What you and your family want to be doing in regards to sugar, sweetened beverage consumption, and what kind of dialogue can your family have around choices of what you do or do not consume in your family so that you are still respectful of the fact that other families make other choices. And yet that you also set really clear defined boundaries for your child on what the expectation is around what you and your family eats or in this.
[00:03:47] And so starting out with decision, this'll be really consistent with everything else I share and have shared so far on the podcast. And that is that it's your job as the parent to decide. What food or beverages are offered when those food and beverages are offered and where those food and beverages are offered.
[00:04:04] So just as this mom kind of acquainted a soft drink as similar to like a dessert and not wanting to vilify it, not wanting to put it on a pedestal, but also not wanting to condemn it in such a way. Either. She seems like a hypocrite when she's consuming it or that it creates this kind of obsession with this Fort bed and food that the child doesn't feel that they are allowed to have.
[00:04:27] So we want to think about how can we first start out with, as a family, making a decision that feels consistent with our family values, obviously. That's why we make the decisions that we make can vary on a lot of different factors. We look at things like a taste of things and, you know, is it something that our family enjoys?
[00:04:45] Is it consistent with our family values or belief system? We also want to think about things like the price and the economics of it. Obviously buying a beverage when you're eating out is an added expense just as it would be as a line item on your grocery list. Things like you know, does your family have any health complications that.
[00:05:02] You know, influence the decision you made or any allergies that might impact the foods or beverages that your family does consider for the purpose of this episode? Understandably. So my biggest consideration and the biggest reason that I want to address this subject is the nutritional. Particularly in kids.
[00:05:21] I do not think that soft drinks let alone any sugar-sweetened beverages are necessary from a nutritional perspective. Again, I recognize that there's other factors that come into this from, you know, your own families desires and beliefs in social scenarios. But from a nutritional perspective, we don't need children to be consuming a beverage that has so much outage.
[00:05:43] Or on the argument of diet soda, there's also a lot of research to show that diet soda can have kind of an opposite effect on our appetite and fascination with sweet things. And so with limited research on how it impacts kids, I tend to encourage families to really limit artificial sweeteners, as well as the added sweeteners.
[00:06:02] Additionally, something like caffeine is not something that we need in kids' diets. And so whether it's a caffeinated soft, Or a non-caffeinated soft drink, my opinion and my decision as a parent personally, as well as a dietician, my advice would be to limit soda as much as possible that said when it comes to what, when and where we're going to offer some things, some of you might kind of just check the box, assuming, well, I don't offer soft drinks to my kids.
[00:06:30] It hasn't crossed my mind. It hasn't come up. This isn't something we consume regularly. So it's not really an issue, but where I want to challenge you here is thinking about soda in the same you know, under the same umbrella as other sugar sweetened beverages, oftentimes in the research and in a lot of different position papers on healthy beverage consumption.
[00:06:50] It's not isolated to just soda because while yes, soda has a lot of added sugar or, you know, as we mentioned, there can be the diet forms, but that wouldn't be advisable either. And so. If we look at the overarching umbrella of sugar sweetened beverages, this includes a lot of different beverages that we might already be offering to our kids.
[00:07:09] So things like lemonade or insists, mom referenced sweet tea, sports strengths, that's your Gatorades, your power rates, all of those types of options, as well as juice, whether it be juice pouches, or a hundred percent juice or chocolate milk, all of these things, I've had sugar added to them. And while they may have a place, a small place in the child's diet, we want to be considered.
[00:07:34] Is it excessive for their overall nutritional wellbeing and our family's overall diet. And so I really encourage families to be thinking of how do these sugar sweetened beverages fit in the diet, similar to how you would be constructing or coming up with your family's dessert policy, you as the parent and as the nutritional gatekeeper, get to the.
[00:07:55] What sugar-sweetened beverages are allowed, when are they allowed and where are they allowed? So begin thinking through what types of ones are coming up in your life and in your lifestyle and your social scenario. This mom suggested how, you know, eating out is kind of the, the event that is creating a challenging feeding situation that she isn't always sure on how to handle.
[00:08:16] So what she's going to let her kids. When they eat out at a restaurant and when she gets her diet Dr. Pepper and her husband gets there, his sweet tea, that is, you know, one of the situations that she would want to begin prioritizing. However, for your family, it may be that, you know, as we get into spring and summer and the warm weather that your family does a lot of backyard barbecues in the neighborhood, and there's a lot of lemonade and sweet tea being.
[00:08:41] Or you might find that you guys go to the movies frequently, especially when it's really hot out. Maybe that's kind of your go-to indoor activity. Do you let your kid get a Slurpee or a slushie or a soda or a soft drink or a sports drink or something of the like. Or if you go to sports events or if your children are playing in sports events, are you allowing them to have a sports drink?
[00:09:01] And if so, when and where is that happening? Additionally, if you're eating out at friends and you know that they may make other choices than you make for your family in terms of what beverages are consumed, or if you're eating out, you want to be thinking about which of these situations rings true for your family and which ones are presenting themselves with the agent stage.
[00:09:20] Your child is. So that you can make a decision that you feel comfortable and confident in before you're back in that situation again. And so thinking through what beverages, other than say, milk and water, you might being allowed. When you're allowing those and where you're allowing those and use this as your starting place.
[00:09:40] If you have a higher intake of sugar sweetened beverages right now, you might need to have your sugar sweetened beverage policy be a little bit more liberal at first, as you kind of ease back to a lower notion. Sweetened beverage diet, if you are you know, not consuming any right now, my advice for you in your decision would be to think about what are you doing now and how long can you keep with doing it?
[00:10:06] And this switches us into my second point. I'm thinking about what are you doing? So at first we make our decision on how we want to handle these situations and the healthy habits that we want to foster for our family. We want to also be thinking about both, what are we doing as adults? How are we role modeling to our kids?
[00:10:24] You know, what are we showing them in terms of what beverage choices that we can see. You know, do we have a policy for ourself? I know some parents do, especially when it comes to adult beverages, you know, maybe it's time that something that you think about with your kids is thinking about, should we have a sugar sweetened beverage policy ourselves?
[00:10:42] So while we might not let them have soda often, you know, is that something that they see us doing often? So while I don't think that this mom needs to change her occasional intake, I think that's something that, you know, We have the occasional beverages of choice at different times and different places in different social situations.
[00:11:02] It is something that we want to be mindful of when we're considering both what our decision for our family is as well as what we want to be doing. So my advice as a dietician and as a mom here is think about what you're doing like this. If you look at early infancy, As the time that only milk is offered, and this might be breast milk, this might be formula for the context of keeping it simple.
[00:11:27] I'm going to just continue to refer to milk as milk, whether it be breast milk formula, or is that child get scold or cow's milk or a milk alternative, I'm going to just refer to it as milk. But we want to think about it. Initially, our kids are offered exclusively. So as they're introduced and we begin to incorporate some water in their diet, our child at this point is on a milk and water only diet from a beverage perspective, we want to maintain this as long as possible nutritionally speaking, there is normally not a need for children to have beverages other than milk and water.
[00:12:01] So my advice to parents, particularly if you haven't begun, introducing any sugar sweetened beverages would be to maintain a milk and water only diet as long as. Where my kids are at eight, six, and three has begun to adopt from this. My oldest was not adopted from this at age three. The way that my now three-year-old is he's the third child.
[00:12:23] So as with many younger siblings, you know, they get exposed to things earlier on than their older siblings do. But what I would encourage here is to begin to evaluate, you know, what are you going to then add next? Because if we start out with milk only transitioned to just milk and water. As you know, kids are exposed to more social situations that a lot of those events that we mentioned before that our kids are exposed to, they will be more aware that there's other beverage alternatives other than milk and water.
[00:12:52] So sometimes it is just a novelty thing. Sometimes it's, you know, getting the baby waters and all that. Necessarily the best for the environment to have a lot of single use plastic and things like that. You might look at, you know, maybe fun party cups for kids. You know, if you're having company over or something that just could feels, you know, a fun straw or something like that, that just feels fun and different.
[00:13:11] Even if it is still water and milk. Additionally, you know, making sure you're bringing your kids water bottle, wherever you're going so that they always have something to stay hydrated. It's a great kind of baseline behavior to make sure that you're doing however, as your kid starts to become more interested in say soft drinks or sugar sweetened beverages.
[00:13:31] My recommendation is that's. When you begin to incorporate a a hundred percent fruit juice or a chocolate. On occasion. So if we're looking at this in tears over the lifecycle of different sugar sweetened beverages or beverage alternatives that we might be incorporating in our kids' diet, we might decide that on occasion, they're able to have one cup of juice after that it's water only, or they might be allowed to have one chocolate milk after that, just water.
[00:14:01] And this is gives them something that's kind of fun and special and something different as. But there's also, again, the bounds on, you know, what is your family decision in terms of what, when and where these beverages are offered. So again, we want to still be limiting the volume, just so that they're not, you know, consuming refill after refill, after refill of these, but things like a hundred percent juice or a chocolate milk at least offer some nutritional advantage over things like a soft drink or Atlanta.
[00:14:29] Or a sports drink because once we start to open the can of worms to include all the sugar sweetened beverages, a few challenges can present them. Our kids can develop a preference for sugar-sweetened beverages. I see a lot of families who say their kids don't like water. And often this isn't from birth or from, you know, late infancy.
[00:14:51] This is once these other beverages are incorporated into the child's diet, they begin to prefer them. So a lot of families are feeling like they need to dilute the juice with water so that the water is still a little bit sweet in order to get the child to drink it. So what we really do want to do is transition the child to.
[00:15:09] Close to a low, to no sugar sweetened beverage diet as possible. And so if they are needing to consume a lot of fruit juice in order to just drink their water, we can see that they've already developed a taste preference for this. So again, when we're looking at. Healthy lifestyle habits. We want our kids to be able to enjoy and have a strong enough intake of plain water.
[00:15:32] That that is a habit that they have for life. It's not something that they constantly need their, their waters flavored, whether it be with diluted juice or, you know, as kids get older. And there's kind of some of these like products that you can put in your waters. Again. There's. Ingredients in there from artificial sweeteners to food dyes, to artificial flavors that are just not a habit that's ideal.
[00:15:53] And it's definitely not one that we want to set our children up for early on if we can avoid it. So we want to think about what are we doing and how can we make sure that what we're doing is consistent. Our family decision. And if it's not, again, you may have to tear this. So you work backwards a little bit and you realize, wow, we've, we've gotten a little bit ahead of ourself in terms of where we're comfortable with our kids consuming lemonade.
[00:16:17] Every single time we go out or chocolate milk every day in place of white milk. And so there are transition policies that maybe I can share more on that in another episode, but regardless of, you know, kind of where your family's position is on this and what you're doing. I want you to think about how your family's dialogue surrounds this subject?
[00:16:38] Because the reality is, is that people consume soft drinks and just like any feeding decision there's people who choose to practice veganism or avoid dairy or not eat certain foods, or, you know, just different things that can play into personal values, belief systems, or. Now use cultural practices.
[00:17:00] There's so many different reasons why different families choose and make that decision to follow different dietary patterns. And so what we don't want to do is ever to position it where someone else wrong for the decision that their family makes, we want to hold high esteem and show respect for anyone else's different choices, even if they're different than ours.
[00:17:21] However, we also want to be really clear with our kid on what our family. So some of the ways that I think you can begin to kind of think through this with your kids and practice, having dialogue on this again, as kids age, their understanding, and their ability to comprehend this concept, which, you know, obviously is a big subject, but it's going to evolve over time.
[00:17:43] So the way that you handle this is going to evolve as your child gets older and more mature and into. Situations and things like that, but a few of the ways that I would suggest it, particularly with this small amount, getting down to the heart of her question is how do we talk about this in a way that's not putting it on a pedestal, but also addresses the fact that she and her husband want to have one of these beverages when they go out.
[00:18:05] And so a few different approaches. Again, I'm not going to tell any family there's only one right way to approach this. I'm going to just give you a few sample dialogues that you might be able to use. As they fit and you know, pair well with whatever your family is, decision is on how you, what you want to be doing when it comes to sugar, sweetened beverages.
[00:18:23] So dialogue like responding that that's not on the menu. If, you know, my kids, like I said, there's sometimes given, you know, other beverages like a juice or chocolate milk in certain social situations. It's very rare, but it does happen on occasion. And so I might say, you know, that's not on the menu tonight.
[00:18:42] If they asked to be able to get a juice or, you know, something like that. So simply saying that's not on menu tonight. Additionally, if it's something that your kids want to buy at the store, like a juice or eliminate or a soft. That your family does not purchase or does not bring into the home. You can just say that's not on the list today.
[00:19:00] So again, you're, you're making clear boundaries on what is allowed. You're also putting a definition on this is time down. So it's not saying that this is never on the menu. It's saying that this is not on the menu tonight. It's not saying that it can never be on the grocery list. It's saying that it's not on the grocery list.
[00:19:17] Additionally, you may choose to handle it from an economics perspective. So just sharing that, that's not something you're going to choose to spend your money on today or this evening, if you're out to eat again, it's an upcharge just as adults we have to decide is this beverage one that we want to spend the money on.
[00:19:33] It is wise to teach our kids that we need to make these kinds of responsible decisions as good stewards of our money. To know when we're going to make these decisions, same sort of thing. With, if it's a beverage you're going to buy, I tend to buy a large amount at Costco. You know, periodically of the juice boxes that I want us to have on hand.
[00:19:50] And I kind of ration them accordingly when we have guests over. And that makes it a really economical decision for us, but they know otherwise if they ask for something at the store, okay. You know, that's not something we're choosing to spend our money on today or this time. Additionally, you might think of addressing it from an age perspective.
[00:20:08] Again, depending on the age of your child, you don't want to vilify the families. This can be a little bit touchier because some families do allow more sugar sweetened beverages and younger kids. But just simply saying, when you become an adult, you get to decide what you're having it. And so, you know, helping them understand that this is you as an adult making an adult decision, but for the kids in your family, you drank milk and water, and that is the go-to for your family.
[00:20:33] Other families may look at it, you know, based on the nutritional perspective and think that this is kind of an either or choice. Like I'm not comfortable with my kid having this and this, but maybe I'm comfortable with one or the other. Sometimes this can get sticky. So again, go back to your family's dessert policy in your sugar sweetened beverage policy, and look to see if something like saying, you know, do you want a choice?
[00:20:56] You may either pick a special beverage or we can get dessert after the meal is done. So in the restaurant situation that this mom shared, that might be something she can either say, would you like to get a chocolate milk or would you like to have dessert when the meals. Again, different episode for a different day in terms of how to handle dessert and all the nuances to that.
[00:21:15] But some people might look to give their kids a choice to kind of see, would you rather have it with your meal or would you rather have something after the meal? We're not dialoguing with our kids about that's way too high in sugar. You can't have that. We're not. The sugar content. We as adults know that that's part of our objective and limiting having both maybe, but again, we're just shepherding these healthy habits so that our kids see, this is a choice.
[00:21:38] We're making a choice on what we want to consume when, and you can help facilitate that conversation for your family. So, as a brief recap, I want you to think about what is your family's decision when it comes to. Sugar-sweetened beverages, your family allows. When do you allow those and where do you allow those and begin to think through those situations.
[00:22:00] And I encourage you to maybe take some notes, have a conversation with your husband and begin to come up with a strategy. If you don't have a dessert policy, this is also a good time to kind of think through that because they often do kind of go hand in hand. In terms of finding the boundaries that fit for your family and your family's lifestyle, as well as belief system on how often you want these added beverages to be allowed.
[00:22:22] Additionally, take a look at what your family is doing. Is your family doing something that you feel like is fostering healthy habits for your children? Are you role modeling, healthy habits yourself with your beverage intake? And is there something you need to either do to maintain or improve this? Or do you need to be.
[00:22:39] You know, alter and pivot and realize that what you have been doing, isn't consistent with what you want your family to be doing in terms of the exposure that your child's getting to some of these different sugar sweetened beverages. Last, I want you to think about how can you have respectful conversations about sugar-sweetened beverages so that you can maintain integrity for the other families that choose differently than you about.
[00:23:00] Subject, but that you can also be really clear and articulate with your kids about where your family's position is on what you decide and what you want to do and how you handle sugar-sweetened beverages.
[00:23:14] It has been a joy having you on podcast today, and if you've enjoyed it as well, I have a quick favor to ask. Do you mind hopping over to apple podcasts and leaving me a written review? This will only take you off. But it truly blesses me every time I get to read one of you right over there. And it allows me to bless others through this podcast and the episodes to come.
[00:23:34] The other thing that you can do is to take a screenshot of this episode and tag me over on Instagram app veggies in virtue, I would love to see what action steps that you're taking from this episode, and also to support your family in the journey moving forward until next time. Thanks for coming over to chat at my kitchen.
[00:23:50] But remember that you will always have a seat and a snack waiting for you here. .
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