Hi Brooke and Team,
I have a 12-year-old daughter who according to her BMI is overweight. She’s expressed to me a number of times in the past her discomfort at being one of the bigger girls in her class. I tell her that she is enough just the way she is, she’s developing some rockin’ curves and she’s very strong and sporty. Kid’s can be little a’holes though, and while she’ll often tell me that their comments are a reflection of them and not her, I know she gets upset and wants to lose weight. I started with SCS about 3 weeks ago and went through the overeating program for both myself and my husband and we’ve lost 7 and 15 pounds respectively using intermittent fasting and removing sugar and flour. My daughter eats the same foods as us at home but we give her leeway to eat other things when she’s at a friends house as long as she doesn’t go too crazy. She has expressed interest in intermittent fasting after asking why we were fasting and I explained to her about insulin and leptin and the concept of ‘dining in’. She was curious about having an eating window from 1130am (the school’s lunchtime) to 1930 and seeing how that feels for her, but there are obviously concerns about children and how skipping breakfast can impact on their schooling. The thing is, I’ve been reading a number of research articles on google scholar, including a metastudy that looked at over 30 studies regarding children, breakfast and school results, and the outcome is quite muddy. The children in these studies tend to be overwhelming from low SES backgrounds that tend to have nutritionally poor diets, so it may be the improved nutrition that makes the difference and not the addition of breakfast at all (there is not a significant improvement in academic results for kids in higher SES who add breakfast). Additionally, a lot of the studies are on school-based breakfast programs, and I wonder if the psychological impact of a school showing extra care for its students then results in better academic performance. I also think from an evolutionary standpoint there’s no way children ate breakfast every day and that fasting was normal for them too. I’m just not convinced that breakfast is ‘the most important meal of the day’ for kids. Do you think it’s ok for my daughter to fast until 1130? I was thinking that we could experiment and monitor how she feels and also talk to her teacher to see whether she maintains attention in class for a month and go from there. What are your thoughts?
Cheers, Kim