to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cBecause I\u2019m diabetic. My dad\u2019s diabetic, my brother\u2019s diabetic. We have so much diabetes in my family, so I\u2019m teaching her to eat really clean because I have the option,” says Menounos. “She has zero option as a kid. At some point, I\u2019m not going to have the same kind of control, so it\u2019s just protein, vegetables, yeah that\u2019s it.”<\/p>\n
\u201cFruit?\u201d asks Mai.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd fruit,\u201d says Menonous. \u201cI blend strawberries and make little popsicles with little plain strawberries or plain watermelon juice. Even like the other night, we made these cottage cheese crust pizzas that I told you, you were going to come over. And she didn\u2019t even eat it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mai then asks what Menounos would do if she and her daughter were at a birthday party together, which would presumably have cake.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe doesn\u2019t even care. Now we\u2019ve only gone to one,\u201d says Menounos.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a blue-shaped cake, three-tiered, with Ariel dangling from it,\u201d says Mai.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s 2 and a half! She just wants to play in the jungle gym, or whatever, goes on the slide,” jokes Menounos.<\/p>\n
She goes on to add that they’d recently gone to a birthday party and Athena didn’t want any of the sweets.<\/p>\n
“She didn\u2019t want any of the stuff. And she\u2019ll say, \u2018I don\u2019t like cake with sugar,'” says Menounos. “Listen, she might at some point. And what am I going to do?”<\/p>\n
“But for now, I was looking at her body as like a foundation,” continues the proud mom. “I\u2019m going to build this foundation as strong as I can, knowing that she\u2019s got my blood and we\u2019ve had so many things. I\u2019m like, I have to be super super careful with her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe drinks water and milk completely,\u201d says Mai. \u201cOr like a cucumber flavored water or something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNope, just water. Oh, actually, she loves sparkling water,\u201d admits Menounos.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s really cool. And you\u2019re preventing her from possibly picking up any habits that could lead to diabetes because your family is\u2026.\u201d says Mai, trailing off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have insulin resistance,\u201d says Menounos. \u201cAnd plus, it\u2019s just the healthier way to be. So I\u2019m like, if I can do it right now\u2026I would not have been like this if the s\u2014 didn\u2019t hit the fan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read the original article on People<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source nz.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEED TO KNOW Maria Menounos is sharing why she avoids giving her daughter Athena sugar Menounos says she focuses on building a strong foundation for Athena’s health with a clean diet of protein, vegetables, and fruit Menounos shares her daughter with husband Keven Undergaro Maria Menounos is sharing why she doesn’t give her daughter Athena […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2332018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[352321,339234,388618,451925,386018],"class_list":["post-2332017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-athena","tag-daughter","tag-jeannie-mai","tag-keven-undergaro","tag-maria-menounos"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Maria-Menounos-Reveals-Why-She-Doesnt-Give-Her-Daughter-Athena.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2332017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2332019,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332017\/revisions\/2332019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2332018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2332017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2332017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2332017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}