The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued a report on sugar consumption rates of teens and children and it has a few surprising findings.
Looking at data compiled between 2005 and 2008, the study found that American children, on average, obtain 16% of their daily calories from sugar, which exceeds the recommendation of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines that “discretionary calories” (added sugars and solid fats) exceed no more than 5-15% of caloric intake.
While it’s no surprise to anyone that today’s kids are consuming too much sugar, I was particularly interested in three of the study’s findings:
- Earlier studies have laid the blame for excess sugar consumption on soda and other sweetened beverages, but this study found that 59% of the added sugar calories came from foods compared with 41% from beverages.
- Kids were getting more of their sugar from foods and beverages consumed at home than outside the home. Specifically, a little more than half of the added sugars calories came from beverages consumed at home (54%), while nearly two-thirds of the added sugars in foods were consumed at home (66%). So this means the majority of the sugar consumption was taking place with (presumably) some parental oversight.
- There was no relationship found between poverty and sugar consumption. Kids across the economic spectrum were consuming about the same amount of sugar.
A senior author of the report was quoted elsewhere as laying the blame for kids’ excessive sugar consumption on processed foods, which can contain high amounts of sweetener.
Pretty timely after yesterday’s discussion of Kellogg’s Krave cereal, no?
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve always considered myself to be nutritionally smart, but I have to say, I was fooled for a while with how the food companies sneak in several types of sugar so that they do not have to list sugar as the 1st or 2nd ingredient in their ingredient list. I don’t think they did that sort of trick even 20 years ago. I can see how so many people think they are feeding their kids a “healthy” snack, when in fact if they added up the cane sugar, brown rice sugar, corn syrup, and various other sugar types, it’s not so healthy anymore. While we always look at the ingredient list, I’ve been trying to get my kids to always look at the grams of sugar, and to remember 4grams = 1tsp. This is so true for granola bars and yogurt, which everyone thinks of as being healthy.
That’s an excellent point, Alicia. The industry has gotten very savvy that way, dividing up the sugar across different sweeteners so that the ingredient list is confusing to consumers.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest has some good (well, I think they’re good, anyway) suggestions for better food labels in an excellent report. You can find it here: http://www.cspinet.org/new/pdf/food_labeling_chaos_report.pdf
One of their recommendations is that all sources of sugar be grouped together so you can easily see the total amount in a serving. It’s sort of criminal that the food industry has been able to practice this sleight of hand with labels thus far.
Wow, that new label would be such an improvement. Interesting report.
Have you watched “Sugar – The Bitter Truth” on YouTube? Kind of long, but very interesting. Makes a very good point – so many people are anti-HFCS, and I am too, but really, we need to realize that all sugar is not good for us. Now, I love a good homemade treat like anyone, but even if it’s made with real, organic, raw sugar, we shouldn’t be eating so much of that everyday. We need to be thinking in terms of quality ingredients, and moderation – and teaching that to the next generation.
That is an excellent point. I’m surprised how many people think brown sugar or honey makes something substantially healthier than it would be when made with white sugar.
I think when some people become passionate about sugar consumption–whether it be HFCS, corn syrup (and all the other names the corn industry has recently come up with), cane sugar, raw sugar, honey, maple syrup, etc., they really do watch their sugar consumption (all kinds of sugar). I know my family does, and because of the way I cook and shop, anything with an excessive amount of sugar lasts a really long time in our household, or needs to be tossed out because it was never fully consumed. If you don’t consume large amounts of sweeteners, soon, many items become too sweet for you. The same occurs with salt.