Forget the sweet talk — sugar’s bad
Most children consume far too much of it, studies show
“Sugar has been shown to have an effect similar to a drug, triggering you to want and need more.”
This article is for all the kids who think the orange juice, cookies, candy and Gatorade they consume are no big deal.
And also to their parents who believe that daily intake of sugar is harmless and just a function of childhood.
Sugar is a sweet substance that comes from plants, mostly sugar cane and sugar beets. It’s one big carbohydrate called sucrose made up of two smaller carbohydrates called fructose and glucose. Sugar has absolutely no nutritional value — no protein, vitamins, minerals or fibre. Why do I like it so much? Sugar has been shown to have an effect similar to an addictive drug, triggering you to want and need more.
Sugar was brought to Europe in the 1100s as a precious drug, known for its “tremendous addictive potential,” and was called “crack” during that time in France, psychotherapist Julia Ross says in her book Mood Cure.
Quickly removing refined sugar from a diet can cause withdrawal symptoms like those with a drug: fatigue, depression, headaches and achy limbs. Studies also show overconsumption of sugar can alter your taste buds so you crave sweeter and sweeter foods, leaving the more natural sweetness of fruits or whole foods less flavourful.
Sugar enters your blood rapidly because there aren’t any nutrients or fibre to slow it down. This causes the sugar or glucose levels in your blood rise. Your body then hustles to process this sugar because it knows you could be in grave danger from too much blood sugar.
Your pancreas releases a hormone called insulin. Insulin allows the glucose to leave your blood and enter your cells, providing a rush of energy. As the cells absorb glucose from your blood, your blood sugar levels drop.
If you eat a lot of sugar, insulin works overtime to force your blood sugar down, dropping it too low, which makes the brain react. This makes you tired and grumpy or agitated and anxious, and leaves you craving more sugar.
Sugar provides a burst of energy that might be fun for a minute but usually doesn’t last long. It can make you hyper and unable to focus.
When the insulin lowers the blood sugar, you might be left feeling cranky, irritable and moody, and less able to concentrate. Sugar can even give you a headache or make you feel sick.
Sugar has also been shown to suppress our immune system by lowering the ability of our white blood cells to engulf bacteria, which can lead to more colds, flus and other sicknesses.
You will feel far better and have more consistent energy without an overload of sugar in your diet.
Eating too much sugar can make you full so you don’t eat enough healthful foods. Then your body ends up missing important nutrients such as protein, vitamins and minerals.
Refined sugar has been linked to the following complications: obesity and Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, cancer, depression, allergies, ADD and ADHD, asthma and arthritis.
If you eat more sugar than your body can use in a day, it stores the sugar it doesn’t need in the liver or converts it to fat. When you do this regularly, you damage your liver and build up fat.
The American Heart Association recommends no more than three teaspoons (12 grams) of added sugar per day for kids. But according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the average consumption is 23 teaspoons for boys and 18 for girls.
The recommended daily allowance can be easily exceeded with just one bowl of cereal. A child who drinks a 20-ounce (570mL) original Gatorade will have consumed three times the sugar allowance for the day.
Added sugar refers to the sugar and high-fructose corn syrup added to foods during processing. The sugar in fruits, vegetables and other whole foods are not added sugars, they are natural sugars.
Added sugar is in 74 per cent of packaged foods, according to a study in 2012 by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Those include foods many of us think of as healthful: yogurt, energy bars, pasta sauce, breads, salad dressing and ketchup.
The FDA maintains a list of more than 3,000 additives in processed foods. Sugar is the second most common behind salt. Low-fat foods often have extra sugar to help bolster taste. Brightly coloured foods with dyes usually have added sugar. Read labels.
Unless you have diabetes, it is difficult to absorb too much sugar from eating whole fruit because whole fruit has fibre. Fibre slows down the digestive process by releasing sugar into the bloodstream at a slow and steady rate.
Unlike whole fruit, fruit juice lacks fibre, quickly releasing sugar into the bloodstream, causing a burst of energy followed by a sugar crash.
One cup of apple juice has 24 grams of sugar. Some juice has almost as much sugar as soft drinks.
Tooth decay begins with bacteria that naturally live in the mouth. These bacteria burn sugar to thrive, and during this process convert sugar into acid. The acid then eats away at the enamel, which causes cavities. Sticky foods like Skittles and Starburst and long-lasting candies such as lollipops and Jolly Ranchers are the worst for teeth because they allow the sugar to dawdle in the mouth for a prolonged period.
I recommend that parents and kids 10 and older watch the film Fed Up together and join the filmmakers’ challenge to give up sugar for 10 days and see how they feel.
My 10- and 12-year-olds found it fascinating. And if you want to have a sizable impact on your lifelong health, reduce your sugar consumption all year long.