Short answer: young children should be avoiding artificial sweeteners, and certainly in children under the age of 4 they would not be recommended.

Why this comes up

It usually comes up because parents are trying to do the right thing. You are aware that children in the UK are having more sugar than they should, so a sugar free version of a familiar product looks like a sensible swap.

For under-fours it is not the swap to make.

What to focus on instead

The sugars to limit are free sugars, meaning sugar added to food. That covers white, caster and brown sugar, and also honey, syrups, nectar and coconut sugar. Some of those carry a health halo, but they all break down into the same amount of sugar in the body.

Naturally occurring sugars in milk, yoghurt and whole fruit and vegetables are not a concern.

So rather than reaching for sweetened products, the more useful moves are:

• Choosing lower sugar versions of the things you already buy, particularly yoghurts, breakfast cereals and cereal bars, which are common sources.
• Keeping desserts to fruit or dairy based options that are low in sugar, and limiting cakes and biscuits.
• Sticking to water and milk as drinks, and avoiding sweetened drinks.
• Looking at how often the higher sugar foods are being offered, rather than trying to replace them with a substitute.

The reason it is worth getting right

The latest survey shows 4 to 10 year olds are having almost double the sugar they should. Alongside that, the UK has high rates of dental decay, and tooth extraction is one of the major causes of hospital admission for 5 to 9 year olds.

Good dental hygiene from an early age matters too, with dental appointments from the eruption of the first teeth and check ups every six months.

A note on taste preference

It is worth knowing that taste preference is learned. We know this is true of salt, where we can adjust our taste buds to enjoy less of it, and the earlier a child adapts, the better.

The same principle is worth keeping in mind with sweetness. Reducing how sweet things taste generally is more useful than finding a way to keep the sweetness and remove the sugar.

If you are unsure

If you are trying to reduce sugar and are not sure what is reasonable for your child's age, it is worth getting some advice rather than guessing from labels, particularly because total sugar figures on packaging include sugars that are perfectly fine to have.