Dr Damien Downing is a former York GP who now specialises in nutrition.

Q As a sensible and concerned wife and mother, I always try to provide good, healthy, wholesome food for my family, and usually I do pretty well. But at Christmas this all tends to fall apart. There are so many sweets, cakes etc around that the kids stuff themselves and don't have room for real food! What can I do?

A It's that time of year again - sugar time! Every Christmas we all binge a bit, or perhaps a lot, on our favourite sugar snack: sweets and cakes for the kids, chocs for mum and beer for dad (come on, be honest). Then we wonder why we feel so unhealthy in January.

There are other reasons too, of course, such as the lack of sunshine I mentioned in my last column, but sugar has a big impact on health in several ways. It tends to replace the nutritious foods in our diet that contain the vitamins, minerals, and even the fibre that we all need, and it also has a direct effect on the immune system, lowering our resistance to infections and ill-health in general.

The list of diseases that have been linked to sugar and refined carbohydrates (such as white flour) is alarming. These include tooth cavities, obviously; acne, unsurprisingly; anxiety and PMT; hyper-activity in kids, (as if they aren't exhausting enough at this time); irritable bowel syndrome; stones in the gall bladder and it can worsen problems such as diabetes.

High sugar intake has even been linked to cancer of bowel and breast, though it is by no means the only factor.

When we look at heart disease things get a bit more complex; is it sugar or fat that is harmful?

After all they often go together - think of cake again, and chocolates.

Scientists have even speculated that fat in foods may be less important than the sugar that is also there.

Consider the implications of that for manufacturers of margarine and other low-fat foods. For now, it is safest to say that the combination of high fat and high sugar is a deadly one for furring up the arteries. And we haven't even mentioned obesity yet.

So what can you do at Christmas time?

It's no use trying to avoid all refined carbohydrates, still less trying to keep the kids away from them. Which is why I recommend a series of compromises - just like life, really.

Let them have the sweets etc, but only after they have eaten some real food. Buy them chocolates, mince pies, Christmas cakes and so on, but don't over cater in the way we always seem to do, ending up trying to force them down the family's throats rather than throw them away.

Don't feel obliged to boil every Christmas vegetable into extinction in the time-honoured way - there are so many TV chefs nowadays offering healthy alternative recipes, and it must be possible to find at least one vegetable the kids like.

And don't forget the tangerines in their stockings, for the vitamin C.

Then on Boxing Day just kick them outside to play football and get some fresh air while they burn off some of those calories.

The Experts column runs in the Evening Press every Monday, featuring a GP, a fitness consultant, complementary therapist, motivational coach, relationships counsellor and a nutritionist.

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