Sugar advice confuses parents more than almost anything else, largely because the word covers two quite different things. So let me separate them.
The sugars we are concerned about
These are free sugars, meaning the sugar that is added to food.
That includes white sugar, caster sugar and brown sugar, which are all the same thing. It also includes the more natural sounding types: honey, syrups, nectar and coconut sugar.
Some of these carry almost a health halo, a sense that they are better for you. Essentially they all still break down into the same amount of sugar in your body, and they should all be limited.
The sugars we are not concerned about
There are naturally occurring sugars in milk and yoghurt, and in whole fruit and vegetables.
We are not really concerned about those. There should not be a worry about the sugars in those foods. The concern is sugars added to things for sweetness.
Why labels make this hard
There are guides on how much sugar is appropriate, but assessing it in practice is genuinely difficult, because labelling does not tell you the amount of free sugar.
The total sugar figure on the back of a packet will also include sugars that are perfectly fine to have, like milk sugars. So a yoghurt and a biscuit can look closer on a label than they are in reality.
What we do know is that the latest survey shows 4 to 10 year olds are having a lot more sugar than they should, almost double. So this is worth addressing in the UK generally, even if the labelling makes precision hard.
Why it matters
Weight
We have significant numbers of children who are overweight or obese, with one in three children leaving nursery overweight or obese, and one in five obese by the time they leave primary school. Reducing sweets, biscuits, chocolate and similar foods is a meaningful part of that picture.
Teeth
In the UK we have quite high rates of dental decay. Tooth extraction is one of the major causes of hospital admission for 5 to 9 year olds.
As your children get older you may start hearing about classmates having teeth removed, and it is quite shocking when you do. Good dental hygiene from an early age really matters, with dental appointments starting from the eruption of those first teeth, and continuing every six months.
Where the sugar usually is
- Yoghurts. Lots of children's yoghurts are very high in sugar.
- Certain cereal bars.
- Sweetened drinks.
- Sweets, chocolate and ice cream.
- Breakfast cereals. Worth choosing lower sugar versions where possible.
It is about looking at how often you are offering these, and choosing lower sugar versions where you can.
A note on artificial sweeteners
Young children should be avoiding artificial sweeteners. Certainly in children under the age of 4, they would not be recommended.
So swapping a sugary product for a sweetened one is not the answer for this age group.
How to handle desserts without making sugar a prize
The general approach is to keep desserts to fruit or dairy based options that are low in sugar, and to limit cakes and biscuits.
It also helps to offer sweet and savoury together, so sweet food is not put on a pedestal. If the sweet option is low in sugar, there is no good food and bad food, and children can eat them in whichever order they like.
Parents often assume this means the pudding gets eaten first and everything else is abandoned. It is not always the way, and children frequently surprise you.
Avoid making dessert conditional. If you eat your broccoli you can have your pudding is exactly the kind of phrase that turns sweet food into a reward.
How we approach it
Our meals have no added sugar and no added salt. Flavour comes from cooking techniques, herbs and spices instead, and we taste test rigorously so that lower sugar does not mean less appealing.
