December 2011: Sugar Sugar!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!  We had a very fun and different Thanksgiving schedule this year…a day of skiing on Baldy mountain!  We were really surprised when we picked up the local paper from the après ski scene at the base of the mountain, only to see our daughter on the cover holding a pumpkin pie!  What a wonderful treat to read a great article written by Karen Bossick of the Weekly Sun.  Check out the entire article titled “Food and Fun” if you’d like to learn more!

For this month’s Healthy Kids Ideas Exchange, right in time for the holidays (and all of the sweets and treats that this season is associated with), I thought I’d write a sobering newsletter on sugar.  Not that I don’t like a little sweetness in my life (including pumpkin pie)!  We are all hard-wired in a way to seek out the sweet taste, so it is definitely a struggle against our very nature to back off of sweets.  But I personally think that sugar has become so prevalent and in such great quantities in the food chain that our consumption of sugar has become an issue of concern.  The average U.S. child consumes around 22 teaspoons of added sugar each day, and the average U.S teen consumes nearly 34 teaspoons.  Yes….34 teaspoons!  I had to measure this out and take a picture of it so you could see how shocking this visual can be:
Hopefully you liked my inclusion of the Lego mini-figure to give you a sense of scale.  Thanks Alexander for letting me borrow your prop!

You won’t want to miss the rest of this newsletter.  In it I will explore the following questions:

-Can too much of a good thing be bad?
-What are the different types of sugar?
-What are foods that have sugar—and how much?
-What strategies can we use to moderate our sugar intake?

Can too much of a good thing be bad? 

Unfortunately, when it comes to added sugars (found in candy, cookies, cake and sugary drinks), the answer is YES.  Children that consume large amounts of added sugar are at risk for conditions such as:
-Tooth decay* throughout their lives
-Obesity and complications associated with it such as heart disease
-Type 2 diabetes and complications associated with it such as vision and blood circulation problems
-A Suppressed immune system which can mean more colds and flu
-Poor growth due to too little vitamin and mineral intake.

* I am doing an experiment this month with my kids in school where we will have one tooth in a water solution and another tooth in a cola solution.  I will post the results on next month’s Healthy Kids Ideas Exchange newsletter!  Don’t miss it… I bet it will be a little yucky but will have a powerful message!

What are the different types of sugar?

There are 3 basic types of sugar:

Sucrose = Table sugar

Lactose = Milk sugar

Fructose = Fruit and Vegetable Sugar

As you can see, not all sugar is unhealthy!   For kids, I think the most important message about types of sugars is that they start thinking about the difference between naturally occurring sugar and added sugar.  It is the added sugar that we really want to limit.  And we do this by reading labels. Let’s look at the Nutrition Facts for a Snickers Bar:

So you can see that there are 29 grams of sugar in this candy bar.  What does this mean to a child?  I like to get kids thinking in terms of teaspoons of sugar, which they can relate to.  Sugar cubes are also quite helpful for visual examples, since they are easily portable for demonstrations.  One teaspoon of sugar is equal to 4 grams of sugar, which is typically equal to 1 cube of sugar:

So now we know that a snickers bar has over 7 teaspoons of sugar!  (7 X 4= 28, the closest number to 29).  But how do we know if this is added sugar or naturally occurring sugar?  Well, this is where Nutrition Label reading gets tricky… food manufacturers don’t tell you if the sugars are added or naturally occurring. For example, let’s now take a look at the sugar in orange juice (100% juice).  What you’ll see below is that there are over 5 teaspoons of sugar in this orange juice—almost as much as a snickers bar!  So you might look at a product and think that it is nearly the “same” sugar-wise as a snickers bar:
The reality is that while this orange juice does contain a whole lot of sugar, it is not exactly the same “sugar wise” as the Snickers Bar.  The difference is that the sugar in the orange juice is naturally occurring fructose, while most of the sugar in the snickers bar is added.  We see this from the Ingredients Lists below (sugar=sucrose and corn syrup; there will be some naturally occurring sugar from the lactose from any milk products):

Again, we want to be on the lookout for added sugars, and these can be sought out on the ingredients list by looking for words such as corn syrup, sugar cane, high fructose corn syrup,  and cane juice in addition to the word “sugar”.

A note on juice:  Following the advice of my Biochemist father, I never offered my kids juice due to the high sugar content.  I am thankful to him to this day for this advice, as my kids have avoided a lot of sugar intake by not drinking juice.  However, the 2010 Nutritional Guidelines for Americans published by the USDA does say that 1 cup of fruit juice a day is OK for kids.  So you can go ahead and offer your kids up to 1 cup of juice a day, but a smarter choice would be to dilute it with water or even better, offer the whole package… the whole fruit. 

What are other foods that have sugar—and how much? 

When I teach the lesson on sugar to kids, there are always a few big surprises as we look at foods and try to guess how much sugar is in each of them. Please enjoy the visuals below (photo credits:  SugarStack.com).  By far, kids are most appalled by the amount of sugar that is contained in soft drinks.  Kids can drink in so much sugar if they are not aware!

What strategies can we use to moderate our sugar intake?

You as a parent have control over the types of foods that your children can access in the home.  So one of the best things you can do is to simply buy more healthy, fresh food and buy less “junk” food.  When you offer your kids a higher sugar treat, make sure to pair it with a protein or high fiber item that will help to regulate blood sugar levels.  Beware of drinking in too much sugar:  avoid sugary drinks and eat whole fruit instead of juice.  You can help to train your kids’ taste buds by gradually reducing sugar in recipes for baked goods and other home-made items when you can control what goes in. You can also act as a great role model for your kids as you select healthy meals and snacks for yourself and display enjoyment at eating a bowl of fresh fruit for dessert instead of a high added-sugar alternative.  Taking kids through the aisles of grocery stores with you to read labels and compare sugar amounts in various items can also empower your kids with knowledge to make great choices.  Finally, you can demonstrate moderation by enjoying your food—and sweet treats– but not overdoing it.  I read once that after the third bite of a high sugar, high fat dessert (like a multi-layered cake or cream pie), your enjoyment starts to fade from its peak.  So do we really want that fourth and tenth and twentieth bite?  Maybe not.

I hope you enjoyed the exploration of these questions about sugar as much as I did.  As I said earlier, I’m not the anti-sugar police, and you can surely find me enjoying some sweet treats in moderation.  For some great ideas for sweets in moderation, please see these past issues of the Healthy Kids Ideas Exchange:

December 2010:  Happy and Healthy Holiday Parties
December 2009:  Holiday Cooking with Kids
December 2008:  Holiday Baking Tips

I hope you have a WONDERFUL holiday season!
Kathryn & her healthy kids (with hubby behind the camera):

Back copies of Healthy Kids Ideas Exchange monthly newsletters are always available online.

Don’t forget to check out the recent posts on the Green and Plenty and Wholesome Heart Blogs!

Green and Plenty:  presents the latest in nutrition, delicious and seasonal recipes, green design and wellness tips for the reader and her family.

Wholesome Heart:    includes delicious recipes, time-saving tips, and nutrition tidbits.

Disclaimer:

This column is for information only, and no part of its contents should be construed as medical advice, diagnosis, recommendation or endorsement by the author. You should always ask your physician for his or her recommendation before starting any new health-related activity.