We're all fat and our teeth have been mostly replaced with crowns. And even though we're in our fifties, our attitude towards sugary food is incredibly unhealthy, because we didn't learn to eat it in moderation, we learned to take advantage of any opportunity that offered us sugary food.

It's just Puritanism and has all of the drawbacks of an overreaching authority.

Those kids usally binge on sugar once they hit adolescence and are away from thier parents. Great way to create a substance abuse issue. It’s what happens every time you do shit like this.

Prohibition is a method of control that requires a hell of a lot of restrictions to work. And even then it has a high failure rate.

We did no added sugar until our kids were 2. We don't regulate much anymore but it seems like they still love sweet things but don't crave it or overindulge like I used to when I was their age. A lot of neural development happens early on

Ate loads of shit for years as soon as I left home, now type-2 diabetic. 😬

There are cultures where sweet foods are less common or less extreme. They eat American sweets and complain that they don't like it because it tastes too sweet, or they will complain that America sweetens foods that they normally don't expect to be sweet.

I grew up having constant access to sweets. While I have never been obese, I do struggle with addiction to sweets and it is a constant challenge to try not to overdo it.

I'm thinking there must be a study somewhere.

And indeed there is, where they studied people who were born just before and after the end of WW2 sugar rationing in the UK:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39480913/

Those people are into their 70s and 80s now, so the long term health outcomes are well documented:

...we found that early-life rationing reduced type 2 diabetes and hypertension risk by about 35 and 20% and delayed disease onset by 4 and 2 years, respectively. Protection was evident with in utero exposure and increased with postnatal sugar restriction, especially after 6 months, when eating of solid foods likely began. In utero sugar rationing alone accounted for about one-third of the risk reduction.

My good friend was heavily guilted growing up when they wanted any food their parents deemed unhealthy, especially sweets. Guess what, they developed an eating disorder and nearly died from it.

I was allowed sugar, but it was cut way back. For example: my parents would take a box of lucky charms for the appeal, then cut it with a Costco size box of Cheerios. Shitload of Cheerios in a bowl, one sad marshmallow. When I got to college and they had bins of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, etc., I went to town and got hit with what I call the Freshman 40. No diabetes, thank god, but my upbringing’s food control fucked me up and continues to do so.

I have a healthy relationship with sugar following a childhood with limited access because sugary things taste too sweet to me now, as well things like almonds and carrots taste sweet to me.

Opposite here. I was born in 1969, so I was a kid in the seventies. My mom was a stay-at-home housewife who packed my school lunches. Often it would consist of a sandwich made of just margarine and sugar on Wonder Bread with the crust cut off (cut diagonally), with either a Jello chocolate pudding or a Ding Dong back when they were wrapped in foil.

Yeah, I'm in that boat. I did have some sugar, but it was extremely rare, and IIRC got phased out more as I got older. I don't think it was ever a hard rule of "no," but more of a "have very little except maybe on special occasions." I never developed much of a taste for sweet things to the point I quite often find muffins for scones unreasonably sweet. When I was doing mountain bike races, I had energy chews and bars. In hinds sight, that was probably a poor nutrition choice for my metabolism, and I now I simply have roasted and salted pistachios, with a sugar free electrolyte mix before and/or after the ride.

I also very much seem to be the exception here. Probably my experience more comes down to my own eccentricities. I have the eating habits and body type of a distance athlete; healthy but low weight, diet consisting largely of slow-burning foods like nuts, fruits and starchy vegetables. I am still figuring out what diet and training routine works best for me, but sugar, even as a mid-ride fuel is a hard no-go for me. I like putting in the work to be able to do extreme sports like mountain biking and snowboarding at a reasonably intense level all day long. I listen to my body and I know without a shadow of a doubt touching high sugar and certainly processed foods is not worth it by any means.

I wasn't allowed to have sugar because I was hypoglycemic as a kid. I'd get a burst of energy and then crash out. It almost put me in a coma once and I had to visit the hospital a few times.

I'd still sneak candy anytime I could!

As an adult, I don't even associate candy with food. To my brain, it's poison. I'm not like obsessive or anything but I don't really eat sweets to this day even though I haven't had any blood sugar problems as an adult.

I do eat some things with some added sugar of course but that's about it.

Once I was dating a woman that had diabetes and to support her, we both cut out added sugar and carbs for 1 month. That was a crazy experience! I literally went through physical and mental withdrawals! Eventually my sense of taste became so different that I remember baby carrots tasting like they were dipped in sugar water! Once I stopped the diet it took weeks for me to start tasting things normally again.

Oh, speaking of sugar and taste, I had a similar experience with everything tasting like sugar when I came home from a 1 month vacation in Spain where I ate pretty normally. The amount of sugar added to everything in the US is fucking gross!

Slightly off-topic comment coming in.

I wasn't not allowed sugar but in moderation. What was heavily restricted was TV. Anytime I wanted to watch something I had to ask and tell my parents how long it was going to take so I had to carefully choose. I presume this was to prevent me from mindless consumption and being glued to screens.

It just made the TV more interesting, so when our parents were out, my sister and I would watch whatever, just to be watching TV and feel like the other kids. My dad tried several times to implement ways to make the device inaccessible to us but (I'm pretty sure) I inherited my stupid brain from him so he probably got annoyed at having to deal with those implementations every time (not that he watched more TV than he allowed us but he regularly taped [on actual VHS video tape] educational content for work).

Also, unfortunately, my ability to choose for myself what to do came at about the same time as all sorts of screens becoming central to our lifestyles and all my parents' efforts was for naught.

My parents were very anti-sugar and extremely controlling of our diet, there was a lock on the pantry door and everything (which is how I learned to pick locks 😉). All of us went wild in adulthood. All of us are obese except my sister who runs a half marathon per day. The funny thing is my parents never ate healthy, they would devour desserts at work and hide candy in their bedroom closet. My dad drinks a gallon of chocolate milk per week today.

My family didn't restrict sugar per se, had candy and soda regularly, however we never had desserts, sugary breakfast, or things like going out for ice cream. As an adult, I rarely crave sweets. Maybe a night or two a month I'll want a piece of candy before bed. And every few months I'll get a shake/ice cream. I'm not sure if it's a learned thing or were predisposed to not crave it.

Had a parent who had limited sugar as a kid. I had soda as a kid and other sweets. Looking back, we ate more vegetables than a typical family and only ate whole wheat bread, but nothing unusual.

My brother and I turned out just fine and even today I barely eat any sugar. Although we were not forbidden. My parents just didn't buy candies.

I didn't get to eat much sugar as a kid. It was fine, never a big deal really. I do remember the first time putting actual sugar on my breakfast cereal just to try it at age 18 or something but it just seemed weird, unhealthy, and overly sweet. I hadn't thought about it since several decades ago, but now that I remember I thank my parents for it.

How many went on to try crack

I wasn't allowed much sugar as a kid and I still have all of my teeth and no fillings at 48. Only repair work is from not wearing a gum shield when kickboxing.

I wasn't limited, but we also didn't have it in the house often. I wasn't taught moderation with food. Probably because I was extremely active so large portions didn't have the same detrimental effects as they would have on a sedentary person, and it's been a problem my entire adult life since I can't play multiple sports, ride a bike everywhere, and have a morning paper route to bike.

I had no sugar except on weekends as a kid. I think I eat less sugar than the average American now, and I’m over 40. I also did a “Whole30” in my 30s and I think that had an effect on my palate as well