Toddlers may be getting hooked on sugar in snacks

Today, fast food has finally conquered the world, becoming a favorite dish of adults and children alike. Loud and colorful advertisements promote salty snacks, fizzy drinks, fatty burgers, and pastries at every turn. Chips and Coca-Cola are available to children even in school cafeterias. Doctors are sounding the alarm, and developed countries are running entire campaigns in defense of healthy lifestyles. And the interesting issue is avoiding sugar in favor of other carbohydrates. After all, some kids can get addicted to sugar in meals and snacks.

Reasons for Sugar Consumption

There are several reasons for this. First, breast milk is sweet enough.  Second, sweets are a popular reward for children from parents and grandparents, to keep them compliant or to preserve family peace.

As a result, we become addicted to sugar from an early age, even though the body does not need table sugar physiologically. The sugar component glucose, which the body requires for muscles and the brain, can easily be obtained from fruits, vegetables, rice, bread, potatoes, and meat.

For the body, artificially prepared industrial sugar means empty, extra calories in the diet. That’s why eating a diet high in sugar is bad for your children’s health. If they consume too many calories, they increase their risk of diseases like obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

However, drastically reducing sugar in the diet is not easy. Take chocolate, for example: when we eat chocolate, our muscles and brain get an extra boost of energy. In addition, the brain’s ability to assimilate the protein tryptophan is enhanced. It is converted in the brain into the hormone serotonin, which provides a good mood.

Where is sugar, and how does sugar addiction come about?

In addition, sugar entails a certain amount of addiction. And because it can be addictive, it should be specially labeled on products so that the buyer can easily navigate the composition of the product and decide what he wants or not. And this is especially true for baby food. It should be organic and contain no artificial sugar. Try to choose natural sugars, such as those found in fruits, fruit juices, honey, or milk.

In my opinion, if you want to avoid sugar, you have two options: use less sugar in general during cooking and baking and look at the label for processed foods. Snacks for babies should contain only healthy ingredients and micronutrients for normal baby growth and development. On each product you buy, you can find a chart with information about energy values, fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. On the ingredient list, you can see if you have added sugar to your food at all.

A maximum of 10 percent of a child’s daily energy intake should be in the form of sugar. For a three-year-old with a total energy intake of 1,000 kcal, that would be the equivalent of 25 grams of sugar. That sounds like a lot, but a glass of apple juice already provides 20 grams of sugar.

The fact that sweets, containing sugar, are bad for your figure and overall health, is known to all. Today, it is fashionable to use sugar substitutes like stevia or fructose instead of sugar. Experts point out that substitutes do not get rid of problems and cause the same damage to the tooth enamel as sugar.

The only correct method to use with children is restriction. Make sure that children are not addicted to sweets. It is best not to teach them about sweet foods and sugar in their teas from childhood. If an addiction to sweets does not form, it will be easier for the child to give it up.