Saturday, July 27, 2019

Glucose builds brains

Joyce Fetteroll brought an article to an unschooling discussion, and wrote:

The article focuses on why human children spend so many years small compared to other mammals. But the interesting part for unschoolers is

"From about the age of four to puberty, the young brain guzzles glucose – the cerebral cortex, its largest part, uses nearly (or more than) double that used earlier or later in life. This creates a problem. A child’s body is a third of the size of an adult but its brain is nearly adult sized. Calculated as a share, a child’s takes up half of all the energy used by a child."

Glucose in the bloodstream -- that all cells use as energy -- comes from simple carbohydrates (sugars) and complex (starches). 4 to puberty is the big period when kids are most drawn to sugar and carbohydrates. (Capt. Crunch is like pure energy gold ;-) (It's also when their palates narrow too. So maybe there's a connection there too.)

Which is more back up for why children's food choices should be honored. They know what their bodies need.

Why Do Human Children Stay So Small For So Long?
December 11, 2014 | by John Skoyles



I don't know why I didn't post this when I wrote it. Maybe I was waiting to add more to it. :-)

I have saved it to SandraDodd.com/sugar, where other info and links already are.

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