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Sugar Consumption in Children and the Effects of it on Children
Added sugar on food has been a concern of many health specialists and parents. Children are not aware of what to eat and what not to eat. Added sugar on food and has an effect on children. Sugar is really bad for kids because it leads to many risky health issues. Sugar is added to food because adding sugar to processed foods makes them more appetizing. Also because sugar gives baked goods flavor, texture, and color. It helps preserve foods, lastly, it balances the acidity of foods containing vinegar and tomatoes (Mayo Clinic). Sugar significantly contributes to total energy intake, and, possibly, to increased body weight. Excessive consumption of sugar is considered a proxy of poor diet quality. In the last decades, the number of overweight and obesity has increased rapidly. Studies show there is a strong association between sugar consumption and obesity ( Delo et al. 2018). In the last century, U.S. diets were transformed, including the addition of sugars to industrially-processed foods. While excess sugar has often been implicated in the dramatic increase in U.S. adult obesity over the past 30 years, an unexplained question is why the increase in obesity took place many years after the increases in U.S. sugar consumption. Increase of U.S. adult obesity rates since the 1990s as a legacy of increased consumption of excess sugars among children of the 1970s and 1980s (Bentley et al. 2020). Higher sugar-containing beverage consumption was associated with small elevations of cardiometabolic in preschool children. Our findings support recommendations to limit the overall intake of sugar-containing beverages in early childhood, in an effort to reduce the potential long-term burden of cardiometabolic (Eny et al. 2020).
Studies done by the AHA also known as the American Heart Association show that the average American children consume 22 teaspoons of added sugar every day. The AHA advises a stricter limit for added sugars. Children between two and 18 should eat fewer than six teaspoons of added sugar per day. That’s about 25 grams of sugar or 100 calories. (Sugar: How Bad Are Sweets for Your Kids?”, 2018). The average can of sugar-sweetened soda or fruit punch provides about 150 calories, almost all of them from sugar usually high-fructose corn syrup. That’s the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of table sugar. Children and teens should limit their intake of sugar-sweetened drinks to no more than eight ounces weekly. Children under the age of two should not eat or drink anything with added sugars, including sugar-sweetened drinks and no more than 100 calories from added sugar a day for children older than age 2 (“Added Sugar in the Diet”).
For example in the picture on the left look at this picture and look at how many spoons of sugar a bottle of Snapple has and how many the wheat bread has. The Snapple has about 11 teaspoons of sugar while the wheat bread has only 1 teaspoon. If you have to choose between these two you should always choose the wheat bread. Studies have been done on this topic and it is shown that children who consume added sugar as a child develop obesity, heart diseases, type 2 diabetes, cholesterol, and high blood pressure.
Added sugar also affects the children’s sleep schedule. Also, Extreme levels of sugar in children can cause interference with neurotransmitters responsible for keeping moods stable. This often leads to depression and anxiety in children. Kids should not be eating sugary food at all. They can eat but there is a limit, and parents should be aware of that. Children will learn whatever you teach them as a child. If you teach them not to consume too much sugar they will be aware of what to eat and how much to eat. My main points were that children take in too much unnecessary sugar and this sugar leads to many risky health issues.
You have the choice to choose strawberry or cupcake. But you should know strawberry is the better choice. After knowing the health issues of sugar now it’s up to you to choose the strawberry or the cupcake. If you choose the strawberry your child will be safe for the rest of their life and if you choose the cupcake there are chances your child will suffer in life.
In this paragraph, I will be discussing my personal experience with sugar and how it affected my body, statistics of sugar intake by children, the health issue of children who consume added sugar, what opposers believe, work cited, and then finally I will have a conclusion to conclude my presentation. I personally relate to sugar a lot. As a child, I ate a lot of junk food and it was the food like donuts, pastries, artificial juices, candies, etc. No-one stopped me from eating all that junk food. I was always confused about whether to choose between donut or banana. Of course, I always ended up choosing a donut because it tasted better. But then when I reached my teenage years I started to develop health issues such as cholesterol and thyroid problems. Then I stopped my sugar intake and then by the time I was 16 all my health issues were gone. I had to work hard for my health issues to be gone permanently. I always maintained a healthy diet and had to exercise regularly. Now I’m healthy. But that doesn’t mean I started eating sugar. I eat sugary food but I have a limit.
In conclusion, added sugar is really bad for kids. Too much sugar intake leads to high blood sugar and pressure. There are ongoing debates about added sugar on food and its effect on children. Researchers are giving more attention to a topic like this because it has become so serious. A lot of American adults are overweight and have risky health issues and the reason for that is too much access to sugar. The best solution for this case is to cut off junk food for kids completely. Kids should consume vegetables and fruits. But there’s a limitation to that solution. Not all American kid’s parents have enough money to buy good food for them. As a result, the government should provide support for those families at least until the age of 18. More research needs to be done to come up with a valid solution.
References
Dello, R.M., Ahrens, W., De, H. S., Eiben, G., Hebestreit, A., Kourides, Y., Lissner, L., Molnar, D., Moreno, L. A, Pala, V., Veidebaum, T., Siani, A., Russo, P., & on behalf of the IDEFICS Consortium, o. behalf of the IDEFICS Consortium. (September 21, 2018). The Impact of Adding Sugars to Milk and Fruit on Adiposity and Diet Quality in Children: A Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analysis of the Identification and Prevention of Dietary- and Lifestyle-Induced Health Effects in Children and Infants (IDEFICS) Study. Nutrients, 10, . doi: 10.3390/nu10101350
Bentley, B. R., Ruck, D. J., & Fouts, H. N. (January 2020). U.S. obesity as delayed effect of excess sugar. Economics and human biology, 36, 100818. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2019.100818
Eny K.M., Jeyakumar,N., Dai, D.W.H., Maguire, J.L., Parkin, P.C., Birken, C.S. (March 1, 2020). Sugar-containing beverage consumption and cardiometabolic risk in preschool children. ELSEVIER. Volume 17, (101054), doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2020.101054
Sugar: How About Are Sweet for Your Kids? (January 4, 2018) Cleveland Clinic. Retrieved from: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/sugar-how-bad-are-sweets-for-your-kids/
Added Sugar in the Diet. Harvard T.H. Chan. Retrieved from: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/added-sugar-in-the-diet/
Mayo Clinic Staff. Added sugars: Don’t get sabotaged by sweeteners. Mayo Clinic. Retrieved from: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/added-sugar/art-20045328
