A sweet tooth: Could it be more harmful than you thought?
As parents, it can be overwhelming to know which food choices are best for your kids. You try your best, but your time and energy are often limited. Some days, it is much easier to pull prepared foods out of the cabinet and make a quick meal. Other days, your kids refuse to eat anything other than mac and cheese or peanut butter and jelly. Making nutritious, homemade meals is rough. Being a parent on top of it all is exhausting!!
As hard as you try, the food industry is smarter than you. The better food tastes, the more likely you and your kids are to continue eating it. And what tastes better than sugar? The end result: Sugar is added to nearly everything. Even children’s vitamins have added sugar! It is disheartening how pervasive added sugar is in the foods we consume.
Americans consume an excessive amount of sugar—on average approximately 20 teaspoons (or 80 grams) of sugar per day. Can you imagine willingly feeding your child 20 teaspoons out of the sugar jar every single day? Perhaps, you can do a little experiment and see how much 20 teaspoons of sugar really is.
Here is a great interview that was on NPR last week with Robert Lustic, MD, a professor of pediatric endocrinology at UCSF. It’s worth the read (or listen). You can also listen to his TEDx talk in full.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/01/13/sugar-smoking-nutrition-health
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/502171330
The evidence is overwhelming: added sugar is dangerous to your child’s—and your own—health. It has been proven to be directly related to three of the major causes of chronic metabolic disease in adults—diabetes, heart disease, and fatty liver disease. These three diseases are deadly. Alone, they account for more than 1/2 of the health care dollars spent in America. And, even worse, these diseases are affecting more and more kids at younger and younger ages. They are not just adult diseases any more.
So what is a concerned parent to do? The American Academy of Pediatrics offers a few suggestions:
Aim for less than 25 grams (about 6 teaspoons) of added sugar per day for children 2 years of age and older. Avoid serving food and drinks with added sugar to children under 2 years of age.
Serve water and milk instead of soda, sports drinks, sweet tea, sweetened coffee, and fruit drinks. Milk contains natural sugar (lactose). It also provides calcium, protein, vitamin D and other nutrients that children need.
Watch out for hidden sources of added sugar in processed food like ketchup, dried cranberries, salad dressing, and baked beans.
Satisfy your child’s sweet tooth with whole fruit.
Limit 100% fruit juice. It has more sugar per serving than whole fruit. The AAP recommends no more than 4 ounces of 100% fruit juice a day for children ages 1 through 3 years; 4 to 6 ounces for children ages 4 through 6; and 8 ounces for children ages 7 through 14. Do not give fruit juice to infants under 1 year old.
In the office, I will often talk with my families about what I call the “Whole Foods Diet” — and no, I don’t mean the grocery store. The idea behind this recommendation is to feed your kids foods that consist of a single ingredient—apples, celery, tomatoes, grapes, chicken, oats, fresh ground unsweetened peanut butter, etc. In other words, foods that are a whole food, in and of themselves. Avoid processed foods—the fewer ingredients the better. Limit any additives or flavorings and especially avoid added sugar. And a good rule of thumb—if you can’t pronounce it, you probably shouldn’t eat it. Sugar itself is even disguised as 56 different names on packaging!
Strive for moderation with your kids, starting with an informed understanding of what is in the foods your family is eating. It can be challenging to balance a busy life and making healthy choices for your family. Avoiding sugar and choosing real, single ingredient, whole foods as often as possible is best way to avoid the cumulative health risks of unnecessary sugar for both yourself and your children.
