I assumed that the dark, discolored skin on the back of my daughter’s neck was dirt. My son had something similar on the creases of his arms, and with a bit of rubbing alcohol, it came right off.
I tried it again, but the stubborn streaks would not go away this time. “This one is on there,” I said to my daughter. But there was something about this dark skin that made me head to google. And to my surprise, there was the diagnosis– pre-diabetes.
I know what you’re thinking. Google is certainly not a doctor, but using my mother’s intuition and the fact that I had been enabling my daughter’s bi-weekly Starbucks and Boba habit, not to mention trips to McDonald’s with friends after soccer practice, I had an inkling that Google might be right.
I made an appointment with my daughter’s doctor, but they couldn’t fit us in for two more weeks, so I did what most mothers do. I tried to solve the problem myself — through food.
Finding low sugar or no sugar options for teens proved difficult. There were several options for adults, but I couldn’t imagine getting my daughter to try a 10-day sugar detox. More importantly, I didn’t want to subject her to severe diet culture and ruin her relationship with food.
I tried a gentler approach to wean her off of the sugar-laden diet that I had, in fact, enabled.
I’m not a nutritionist, but I know a bit about how to eat healthily through trial and error, so I started with breakfast. If I could just get my daughter to switch up her breakfast, we could add other options.
What follows are a few tips for changing your teen’s breakfast routines.
The first thing you should know is that sugar is the actual devil. Sugar is the first food you need to diminish with a prediabetic child, and breakfast is usually the biggest culprit.
Eliminate the following:
- Sugar cereals
- Waffles
- Pancakes
- French Toast
Replace with the following:
- 1 Egg with 1 tablespoon of cheese and 2 slices of premade bacon in a low-carb tortilla.
- Avocado toast on sourdough bread or a brown rice cake.
- Oatmeal with blueberries, half a banana sliced, and 1-2 tablespoons of peanut butter.
- Dave’s bread toast with 1 tablespoon of peanut butter and sliced strawberries
These are simple meals that a teenager can grab and go and my daughter’s favorites so far. Some professionals may not like that I’ve included bananas and bread, both of which have a high glycemic index. However, my primary goal was to teach her how to eat better overall.
Teens also have a habit of skipping breakfast altogether. This can cause lunchtime issues where they want to devour everything at noon and make terrible choices. Encourage breakfast so your teen doesn’t do this.
If you have a prediabetic child, make an appointment with your doctor to have them do a fasting blood test. This will confirm their diagnosis and give you the information you’ll need to start your child on a healthy journey.
For now, I hope these suggestions help you to prevent teenage diabetes.
College Collabs 