No pop:until 12 yrs.

http://www2.canada.com/vancouvercour...-d838deabca47#

Article on forbidden "bad" foods for children and dealing with it.
In last paragraph of lst page in above link, an experienced registered dietician who has lectured and written books on feeding children, recommends not offering pop/soft drinks to children until they are 12.

Wonder how well this would work in families these days when soft drinks are so ubiquitous...if not at home, at children's friend's homes, etc. However it is within still living memory of some TE members here :rolleyes: , when soft drinks were considered occasional/special drinks for parties, etc.

My dh and I don't like soft drinks much, and our son gets it only on special occasions. Yup, he's mad about the stuff and will drink litres of it if he can. But I truly think he would have done so no matter if we had restricted it or not. Now he gets it maybe once a week.

We rarely have pop in the house, and, yes, I'm one of those old enough to have grown up learning that it was for special occasions only. :) Interestingly enough, neither of my girls (ages 15 and 12) can stand the stuff.

We never had it in the house growing up. My husband likes Coke and used to drink about a can a day, but he's down to once or twice a week now. I think I drink pop maybe once a month.

When DD was small, I drank only water, juice, coffee and milk (and the occasional glass of wine). She grew up drinking water, juice and milk and even when we moved in with my current DH whose kids were crazy about soda, she never really took to it, thankfully.

I remember it being a special-occasion only drink too (and I'm not that old!). Slumber parties, mostly, and occasionally (1 - 2 times per summer) my father would come home with a case of weird flavors from the Pop Shoppe. Loved that!

Even though we keep the stuff around the house (DH is an addict) my kids can't stand it. They hate the sharpness and how it feels on their tongues, so they don't drink it at all. It makes it difficult when we go to cookouts and picnics--often soda is the only drink offered.

Sarah

We never had soda when I was growing up, and we never had it in the house when my daughters were growing up either. Kids need nutritious food to grow on, not junk! Whether it's a 'special occasion' or just a normal meal, soda basically fills kids up with high fructose corn syrup and then they don't want to eat real food. In my view it's not a 'drink'- it's more like drinking candy.

Anyway, thought I mention that I went to a neighbor's house last week when she was giving a birthday party for her 9 yr old son. There were about 12 active boys there, and notably no soda at all. When the home made cake was served, everyone had a choice of milk, apple cider, or water. Most of the boys drank milk and thought nothing of it. Not your typical kid's party, and it seemed pretty refreshing to me for a change. :)

There was soda in the house when I was growing up, but it was reserved for lunch/sandwiches on the weekends, or as a drink, maybe after school. We never had soda served with dinner. I drank water. I do remember hanging out and drinking Coke and eating fries as a teen, though!
I do not have soda in my house, unless you count seltzer. My kids had it at restaurants or other's houses. One drinks it and one does not, as adults.
Once in awhile I have a Diet Coke, but it has been less and less often as the years go by.

Can't remember what a cup of Coke or Pepsi truly tastes like --as a kid and teen, when offered, I found taste too powerful. So it's turned me off soft drinks in general. Will drink Sprite/Mountain Dew/7-Up ..as a last resort if offered/nothing else is available. We don't stock it at home. Usually a guest has brought a bottle and left it behind. I end up draining out the contents into the sink.

Main reason why I never gravitated to soft drinks was ..feeling gaseous and too full..too soon: not enough rm. for other food! :p It made no sense to go to a Chinese banquet with all this terrific food in front me... I was a hungry kid, just longing to explore. :D

For all the parties I've personally hosted with/without children in attendance, I've never offered soft drinks. Not much of conscious decision. Maybe am just absent-minded. It was just easier for me to have leftover juice ..if it didn't get all used up.

But I do get the powerful impression, that as adults some of us have changed..to drinking diet pop?

Bewildering to see some children (7-9 yrs.) hauling around...Gateroade juice bottles.

We don't keep soda in the house at all... but I don't restrict the kids from having some if they're offered it. Sure, it's not a healthy every day thing, but like ice cream, once in a while is just fine :) We don't generally keep juice in the house either - nutritionally it's so much better to just eat the whole fruit.

We ALWAYS had soda in the house growing up... but even then I don't remember drinking much of it until college when I got hooked on Mountain Dew.. but soon after I discovered coffee.. and I rarely drink soda any more :)

My addiction is tea at home. With milk, no sugar
Coffee --outside of home. So oddly, I see coffee as 'special'. Nice dark coffee with milk, no sugar. Suddenly one day on campus when I was 21, I decided to not to put sugar in coffee. That was it. No real analysis of anything. And to this day, can't explain it...especially when I do eat dessert.


It's more of cost-saving thing for me for nearly...past 30 yrs.

I recall having Chinese green tea at parties..probably as young as 9. Usually those teacups at Chinese restaurants are small. For orange pekoe tea/similar at home, I was often asked by mother to prepare a pot of tea for everyone. Which meant 1 teabag in a pot of water ..for 8 people. Then added milk in whole pot. So everything was diluted in the end.

Of all the things I have to worry about while raising my two boys, the occasional can of soda is not very high on the list. I don't drink sodas at all. My kids understand that artificial sweeteners are toxic, so they never drink light sodas even when offered at someone else's house. But regular sodas are fine. I usually buy a six-pack for the weekends. Today I just bought two. We eat well for the most part. We eat very little processed food--almost nothing, really, other than the weekend sodas. So I can't get on board with trying to take away yet another treat. As they say, most things are fine in moderation.

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Originally Posted by shootingstar

Wonder how well this would work in families these days when soft drinks are so ubiquitous...

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It will work as well as the warnings that second hand smoke is bad for the families that smoke, or that highly processed fatty foods are bad for the families that live on fast food, ... either people care or they don't

It is like drinking candy, but um, nobody's suggesting drinking it instead of water, are they? We treat it as candy in our house, and serve it as a treat once in a while like any other candy or sweets. And I refuse to let our son have it with meals, desperately trying to teach him that liquid sugar and good food do not mix well :rolleyes:

I havent had pop/ soda in over 15 years. To me it is not even a beverage option.

If I had a child he/she wouldnt even know what it is. I personally wouldnt give him/her something bad for them as a reward cause doesnt make sense to me especially when there are healthier options available. JMO obviously :p And it's probably a good thing I dont have kids cause they would probably hate me!

*shrugs*
I drank pop all the time as a kid, all the way through high school. And I have always been of a completely average or even low weight, and have cavity-free teeth. Maybe I just got lucky with the genes, but my mom almost always put a balanced meal on the table at dinner... so it's not as though I was drinking soda all the time while also eating fast food all the time. My mom is Type I diabetic so in general my diet was quite low-sugar/low-fat.

DBF and I keep a small variety of canned pop in our house, but it's as a treat (or "medicine" when I know I might need a little caffeine buzz to stay awake during a long day so I'll pack a can with my lunch :p). Probably 90% of all the liquid we consume is water straight from the tap. I didn't get into that habit until college, when I realized that in the dining hall I could pay for soda or drink water for free. :rolleyes: I'm sure my body is much better off for that change, but I don't think there's anything wrong with having soda once in a while.

I grew up with it as a treat--if we went out to eat (not common until I was 10ish) or for special occasions. I really only drink it now if I need a caffeine boost and don't want to drink coffee. I usually drink water...but Cleveland's water is nasty.

When I was a kid, we had it for special occasions. I remember that it was always offered at birthday parties but they always only had Coke and I hated the flavor of cola. I'd always ask for water and my friends parents always seemed surprised by that. My brother drank it though. He's no worse for the wear, either. No weight problem, no teeth problem and he looks easily 10 years younger than he really is. Of course, back then, soda was sweetened with real sugar...none of this fake HFCS crap. ;)

I don't remember ever having soda at home, but I'm sure we did. I just chose not to drink it. We had sugar cereals, tons of candy at Halloween, baked goods out our ears at Christmas... but a meal was not a meal with veggies, so it all balanced out. :D

I remember when soda was a treat. Way back in the 60's. Gosh I feel old!

In college and beyond I use to drink diet pepsi all the time. I stopped when my daughter was about 4 years old. She saw me drinking it and thought that was what one should drink. Twenty year later, she has a serious milk, juice and tea habit and like her mother only drinks an occasional soda. About all I drink now is water, coffee and tea. And an occasional Scotch or Margarita. :rolleyes:

It's nice to know, as a mother, I got at least one thing right! :D bikerHen

Interrupting this discussion to post what I think is a wonderful story from The Onion.

Pam

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Originally Posted by PamNY

Interrupting this discussion to post what I think is a wonderful story from The Onion.

Pam

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:D love it :D

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Originally Posted by PamNY

Interrupting this discussion to post what I think is a wonderful story from The Onion.

Pam

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If no marketing, then looks like the parents /adult fans have to spread the good word. Interesting! It's like making baking soda or Xerox machine part of one's life/living...either you like/use it or not.

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Originally Posted by shootingstar

If no marketing, then looks like the parents /adult fans have to spread the good word. Interesting! It's like making baking soda or Xerox machine part of one's life/living...either you like/use it or not.

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Not likely to happen, the Onion being of course being entirely a humor/parody magazine. :cool: The cola/culture wars continue.

We did not have pop at home or rarely did. I knew this was different than other families and there may have been times I felt ... not deprived that's not the word I'm looking for not sure what the right term would be .... just different.

This was 50's-60's I was not bombarded with "everyone must eat fast food all the time and this kind".

My parents were farmers till huge agribusiness made it even more difficult to sustain a small farm. They sold most of the property and both got jobs in town. Even with two parents working full time, three kids, they maintained an astounding garden on the land they kept.

We ate real well. :)

The joke was if they'd have kept a few chickens, a sheep or two, maybe a cow .... we'd be self sufficient ;) we ate hardly any "junk". Neither of them were "preachy" about eating natural. My sibling Duck on Wheels may have more input on this, it could be because my Dad's degree in chemistry maybe he knew/thought that a more natural diet could be better. My Mom has very strong opinions about genetic modification of food and because beets and therefore beet sugar are often modified she avoids sugar unless it's the natural stuff.

Since she's active, still gardens, able to live independently at 87 ... maybe she's on to something. She credits a philosophy of "keep moving" so maybe you can drink Pepsi, eat chips and ride your bike :p But we ate fresh, local from the start and I don't crave cola at all.

I like Blue Sky http://drinkbluesky.com/products/index.php?cat=2 but not enough to keep it around.

My son gets the occasional sip of soda, but at 6 I don't think he's ever really had his own glass. I don't keep much at home and he likes milk and water thank goodness. Sadly I don't cook much and we eat out a lot with my parents. My son thinks kids meals at sit down restaurants come with milk and broccoli!

The other time I drink pop is if I'm sick and don't have much of an appetite. And then, it's just a glass of Sprite (or maybe cream soda, depending on how I'm feeling) alternated with water.

Soft drink got too expensive so we quit cold turkey... That was 5 or 6 years ago. Haven't missed it at all. Then we learned abour High Fructose Corn Syrup. Bad stuff another good reason not to drink that stuff.

Former addict. Used to down a 2-litre bottle a day minimum. :o not proud

I have to admit I'm a former Diet Coke addict - stopped it during pregnancy and felt a lot better from a GI standpoint - never really went back. We never offered the kids soda - they drink milk and water with a rare fruit juice - my MIL thought she was going to give my son a "treat" and he took one sip and didn't like it. My sisters kids are the same way - didn't get soda as little kids and ended up not caring for it when they got older.

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Originally Posted by drdwin

I have to admit I'm a former Diet Coke addict - stopped it during pregnancy and felt a lot better from a GI standpoint - never really went back. We never offered the kids soda - they drink milk and water with a rare fruit juice - my MIL thought she was going to give my son a "treat" and he took one sip and didn't like it. My sisters kids are the same way - didn't get soda as little kids and ended up not caring for it when they got older.

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As said earlier, I never liked pop drinks much at all. And it we had it only for special occasions or in restaurants as kids. It was easier for my parents to deal with us: Our childhood diets were 80% Asian-dominant, hence not much sugar in it. Hence, our childhood palate was not hankering for alot of sugared stuff.

I disagree with badgercat who had the fortune of cavity-free teeth and access to pop in her childhood household which didn't affect her weight, etc.: Rationale doesn't work when parents are raising 6 children. If 1-2 children start up a regular unhealthy food habit, it spins off superfast amongst the other sibliings: "I wanna to have a piece of the (unhealthy) food'.

At this time, I believe my brother might drink pop abit more often than his 5 sisters. Rest of us, just aren't particularily interested on a regular basis. Our ages are: 40-50 yrs. So restriction to certain unhealthy foods starting from babyhood....can work sometimes.

So I agree drdwin, just quietly restricting access of pop to kids without lecturing, etc., one can only hope the kids don't acquire a hankering for the stuff at least for next 18 years or when they leave home. :rolleyes:

Every time I see this thread, I read it as "No poop: until 12 years."

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Originally Posted by tulip

Every time I see this thread, I read it as "No poop: until 12 years."

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Now that's a recommendation that might be difficult to comply with!

We don't drink soft drinks in our house, and my 9 year old son has never had any (unless he has been to birthday party and had it without my knowledge!) We don't miss it. He drinks lots of 1. water 2. milk 3. juice. Actually the dentist warned about drinking too much juice during school hours when he did not have the opportunity to brush his teeth, and he went off juice for a while! Lots of milk then. Boy did he grow.