The American Heart Association (AHA) set a new standard Monday for how much added sugar children should consume a day.
Advertisement
It’s also recommended children under two consume 1000 calories per day or 2,400 calories per day for an active 14-18 year old girl and 3,200 for an active male in the same age group.
High-fructose corn syrup, molasses, honey and table sugar are considered as added sugar and contain calories.
Regular consumption of foods and drinks high in added sugars can lead to high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes, which increase the risk of heart disease.
“There is little room in a child’s diet for added sugars, because they need calories from vegetables, fruits, protein sources, whole grains and dairy to grow up healthy”, said Dr. Miriam Vos, the chairperson of the committee that wrote the scientific statement, and an associate professor of pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.
“For most children, eating no more than six teaspoons of added sugars per day is a healthy and achievable target”.
The recommendations come after a panel of experts conducted a review of scientific research into the effect of added sugar on a child’s health.
He said children should have just one can of soda a week, but most “are now drinking their age in sugary drink servings each and every week”.
A challenge for parents is that so numerous foods and snacks with high sugar content are marketed specifically to children, such as sweet cereals, cereal bars, cookies and cakes.
The second recommendation from the AHA scientific report advised that children under age 2 have no added sugar in their diets.
“Children should not drink more than one eight-ounce sugar-sweetened drink a week, yet they are now drinking their age in sugary drink servings each and every week”, said Vos.
Youngsters aged between two and 18 should eat less than an ounce (25gms) of added sugars daily, the statement said.
Does your toddler have a bigger appetite for drinks with added sugar such as soda, fruit-flavoured and sports drinks, than fresh fruits and green vegetables?
The report did not issue any guidelines on the use of non-nutritive sweeteners, such as Splenda (sucralose) or NutraSweet (aspartame), because the panel found few good-quality studies of these sweeteners’ benefits or health risks in children, the report said.
Children should not drink more than one eight-ounce (237-milliliter) sugar-sweetened drink per week, she added. That way, there is less of it in the home, she said. In addition, she urged parents to read and compare nutrition labels, which now list “total sugars”, meaning all of the naturally occurring and added sugar in a product.
Prof Vos noted that the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the World Health Organization and the Food and Drug Administration recommend that added sugars should make up less than 10 per cent of calories, which aligns with these guidelines.
Advertisement
Starting in July 2018, food products sold in the United States will have to list the amount of added sugars on the Nutrition Facts Panel.
