Let your children eat! A recent study found that restraining your child’s food intake actually promotes obesity. This actually makes sense when you consider the cause of food restraint. Most parents feed their children highly processed foods rich in trans fats (hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated), sugar and other refined carbohydrates (anything white and high-fructose corn syrup), and a host of artificial sweeteners (aspartame, splenda, etc.). All of these foods have this in common: they are unnatural foods developed in the last 100 years that humans are not designed to metabolize! All of these foods pervert the diet, and even though many of them are promoted as "low fat", or "diet" foods, they have marked a century of unprecedented weight gain. When we, or our children, eat these foods, our body is left craving real nutrients. As a result we consume more. As this study found, children will then desire more food, and parents will attempt to restrict consumption--but its a losing battle. Start your children off on the right foot. Teach them to eat the foods that were designed for their bodies--then let them eat! Link to the paper