INMYVIEW DEMONISINGSUGAR RISKSCHILDRENSKIPPINGFRUIT

HOW often do we hear about the bountiful health benefits of a balanced diet? Yet, for some reason, official advice on obesity tends to obsess over particular food groups and insist that sugar, or salt, or fat is the villain of the day.

For instance, Public Health England is pushing for children to focus on the sugar in food by comparing the content of some items with the daily allowances for their age group.

While I wouldn’t wish to undermine efforts to stem the obesity epidemic, I fear that encouraging youngsters to think of foods in terms of sugar content alone could have the unintended consequence of them placing fruit in the same category as sweets, cakes and other highly processed foods.

It’s all too easy to conclude that, because an apple, pear or banana contains sugar, then it, too, must be bad for us, even though the fruit sugar in it is naturally derived and in small quantities.

A Granny Smith apple, for example, contains around 11.8g sugar, roughly the same amount as 100ml of a fizzy drink, such as cola.

While a child may eat only one apple, they are likely to drink far more than 100ml of cola and so take in much, much more sugar.

This can play havoc with hormones and lead to weight gain.

Of course, fruit has other benefits, too, such as fibre and nutrients.

Rather than teaching children to demonise a single food group, we should be promoting the value of a diet rich in wholefoods and plant protein. The words of author Michael Pollan, ‘don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognise as food’, are a good place to start.