Children eat year’s worth of sugar in just FIVE months

CHILDREN are taking just five months to consume the amount of sugar they should be having in a year, experts warn.

In that time, under-11s eat 17lbs of sugar – the equivalent of 1,952 cubes, or 13 every day. Over the course of a year, they are gorging on the equivalent of nearly 5,000 sugar cubes, or more than 40lbs.

Worryingly, they are getting more than a fifth of their sugar intake from soft drinks and fruit juice, a national diet and nutrition survey found. The Public Health England report says parents should swap soft drinks for water, while limiting fruit juice and smoothies to 150ml – one small glass – a day.

Sugar- laden fizzy drinks, squash and energy drinks are contributing more than treats such as ice cream and puddings combined. Experts say they are wrecking the nation’s teeth and storing up a major health crisis for decades to come.

Dr Alison Tedstone, chief nutritionist at PHE, said: ‘We’re barely halfway through the year and already children have consumed far more sugar than is healthy. It’s no surprise this is contributing to an obesity crisis.

‘Snacks and drinks are adding unnecessary sugar to children’s diets without us even noticing. Swapping to lower or no-added-sugar alternatives is something all parents can work towards.’

More than 22,000 children are leaving primary school severely obese while about 170,000 are overweight by some degree, latest official figures show.

They are twice as likely to be dangerously obese aged 11 as when they started in Reception class aged four, putting them at risk of major health problems.

Today’s report by PHE found four- to ten-year-olds are typically consuming 13 sugar cubes a day, or 52g – the equivalent of five Cadbury’s Freddo bars.

Cakes, biscuits and fruit pies are responsible for about 10 per cent of their daily consumption – which should be no more than five to six sugar cubes a day in total. Sugary breakfast cereals (8 per cent), toast with spreads (9 per cent), washed down with a glass of fruit juice (11 per cent), mean many children could be getting almost half of the recommended levels before leaving the house in the morning.

Sugar is behind soaring A&E admissions for tooth decay, with a child having a rotten tooth removed every ten minutes in England’s hospitals.

Health professionals worry the childhood obesity crisis will lead to major health problems in future, with levels of type 2 diabetes and cancer set to soar. They are calling on the Government to make sugar ‘the new tobacco’.

Caroline Cerny, from Obesity Health Alliance, said the latest findings were ‘extremely worrying’, adding: ‘One in three children are over a healthy weight when they leave primary school – storing up serious health problems for the future – and we know that a diet high in sugar contributes to this problem.’

In April, the Government introduced a sugar tax in the hope that higher prices will put people off the most sugary drinks, with the money raised being spent on school sports.

Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: ‘The sugary drinks levy is key. Not only did its introduction in April take huge amounts of sugar out of the drinks that children are most fond of but also, as they will already have discovered, made many healthier brands of pop cheaper to buy.’

Gavin Partington, of the British Soft Drinks Association, said the industry had led the way in calorie and sugar reduction.