
American toddlers are eating more sugar than the amount recommended for adults - prostoalex
https://qz.com/1302201/american-toddlers-are-eating-more-sugar-than-the-amount-recommended-for-adults/
======
toomanybeersies
Last year I went a month avoiding any food or drink that contained added
sugar.

Health benefits aside (I was also exercising a lot more and drinking less, so
I can't comment on specific benefits), it was incredibly hard.

It wasn't the sugar cravings that were hard. I didn't get them at all, I
didn't miss sweet food or sugar one bit. The hard part was actually finding
food that didn't contain added sugar.

I was basically relegated to preparing all my food from scratch. Practically
anything in a packet contained sugar. Even the most innocuous things would
contain it. Obviously some things only contain low amounts and that's normal
(e.g. cured meats), but I couldn't eat most bread, any sauces, the vast
majority of pre-prepared meals (except for "paleo" meals), or any spice mixes.
Even bottled mayonnaise contains sugar!

It made trying to find a snack incredibly difficult, I basically had to eat
carrots and hummus.

At least whisky contains no added sugar (caramel colouring wasn't counted as
sugar, in this case).

~~~
peletiah
> relegated to preparing all my food from scratch

> find a snack incredibly difficult [..] I basically had to eat carrots and
> hummus

You make it sound as if it was not normal to cook your own food from basic
ingredients and not regularly eat processed snacks.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Practically everything I eat comes out of a package these days. I'd prefer it
wasn't like that, but it was the easiest way to measure calories when I was
losing weight. You don't lose half your body weight by not making extreme
sacrifices, despite what charlatans might tell you in an effort to sell you
something.

After I hit my lowest weight I decided to ease up on the extreme calorie
counting and shift my efforts towards eating simple home cooked meals since
they'd be less expensive and, if you believe the common wisdom, healthier.
Consequently, I put on about 30 pounds. This was mostly eating tofu, eggs,
potatoes, fruit, mushrooms, various vegetables, cheese, and homemade bread
(usually whole grain).

So I went back to what worked. One other thing eating packaged foods did was
give me a bunch of time back. I'm still about 10 pounds up from that
experiment.

~~~
JacobJans
I don't know what you've tried, in terms of home preparation of food. One
strategy is to switch to two meals a day, plus one snack. Another is to focus
on high-volume, low calorie density foods, such as vegetables and beans, while
limiting high-calorie dense foods such as bread, cheese, and meat. This allows
you to feel full from fewer calories. Another way to think about this is to
dramatically increase your fiber intake (and not just from hard fruits, but
from a variety of sources). For example, if you were to make a pasta dish, use
half the regular amount of pasta, and greatly increase the amount of veggies
in it, so the pasta is just a small component of the dish.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
I've been fighting my body for the better part of a decade now, trust me when
I say that I've probably tried every piece of advice ever parrotted on the
internet. For instance the high-volume low-calorie high-fiber plan ultimately
just made me extremely bloated and often constipated.

~~~
JacobJans
The bloating is caused by the production of gas by the bacteria in your gut.
If you add a lot of fiber at once, the bacteria will overpopulate, and produce
too much gas, causing bloating/distension. One way to avoid this is to
gradually increase the amount of fiber, so your microbiome will adjust slowly,
allowing you to avoid the excess gas/bloating. Not sure what to say about the
constipation, though it could be a similar issue.

These things are not simple, are they?

One strategy is to focus on the healthy veggies that your genetic ancestors
likely ate; your body is more likely to be adapted to those foods.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
I didn't ask for your advice and I'm not a moron so I know how to use google
just as well as you do.

This is the shit I'm talking about. If you have difficult losing and
maintaining weight people crawl out of the woodwork to parrot bullshit advice
they got from some clickbait article as though knowledge isn't the easiest
part of the process. People don't have difficulty with their weight because
they lack knowledge, people have difficulty with their weight because
suffering sucks and the human body doesn't like having to eat itself.

------
jernfrost
You need to tackle this stuff early on. Here in Norway sweets are banned from
pre-school and school in lunch boxes, including for birth days. There are no
pre-school or school celebrations involving sweets.

The kids get involved early in learning about healthy food making and we get a
cook book about what sort of food one should make for children when they start
school.

This is something so serious for people's future and life that I don't think
one can focus enough on it.

~~~
yodsanklai
> Here in Norway sweets are banned from pre-school and school in lunch boxes

This seems reasonable.

I remember seeing 'Supersize me' where kids were fed with junk food (e.g.
pizza, chocolate bars, sodas) at school. Is that representative of American
schools or did they pick the worst ones to make their point?

~~~
agildehaus
It varies by location and affluence. When I was going to a public elementary
school in the midwest, in the very early 1990s, we had "pizza days" that
happened once or twice a month but generally the food was fairly healthy.

I think they maybe had deserts like pudding sometimes. There were no sodas or
junk food available at all. The drink choices were 2% milk, chocolate milk, or
water.

What I do remember is the food seemed fairly low quality. Canned and frozen
packaged stuff, never anything resembling fresh. Every kid got the exact same
meal unless you had some medical exemption.

In high school there were some bad choices available in the menu. There were
soda and junk food vending machines, but they weren't part of the normal
cafeteria and I never had money for them. While there were unhealthy options,
there were also many healthy options and you simply bought what you wanted.
The freshness was maybe a step up from elementary school.

I think there may have been efforts to remove the vending machines since my
time there.

~~~
scandinavegan
> In high school there were all sorts of bad choices. There were soda and junk
> food vending machines.

I read a bunch of years ago in Branded by Alissa Quart of American schools
where soda giants would fund equipment for the sports teams _and_ provide free
soda for the cafeteria. So the school would both have to pay for their own
drinks in the cafeteria and refuse sponsorship of the sports team to avoid
being involved with soda the companies. It just makes economic sense in that
case to let the soda company rope the kids in.

It's been a while since I read it, and I can't verify the truth. For me, it
sounds like schools should have no part in getting kids addicted to soda.

~~~
jernfrost
That is just sad. I think it is for good reason here in Norway that companies
can not contribute to school funding. They try to keep private money out of
schools, so that you don't end up with A and B schools because some parents
are richer than others.

I think the corporate sponsorship you talk about here also means that the
pressure to fund schools properly through taxes are taken away. It gets too
easy to avoid taxes by getting others to pay.

~~~
com2kid
> That is just sad. I think it is for good reason here in Norway that
> companies can not contribute to school funding.

I had a great High School class in genetics that would not have been possible
without large donations of money and equipment from a local biotech company.

I have fewer problems with companies donating science equipment, computers,
and the like. There have been occasional issues with corporate donated history
books though...

------
emmanuel_1234
It's absolutely mind blowing that this article doesn't mention _diabetes_ as
the main problem from eating too much sugar. It affects a third of Americans
and is spreading around the world at an alarming rate. Why is that? Why is it
that my mother knew about sugar and diabetes, but it's almost as if we forgot
and are painfully trying to prove the connection again.

~~~
notyme
Just look at the advertising and lobbying spending of sugar industry to gauge
their power over population's discretionary spending.Also, bulk of their
marketing spend is during cartoon programming of kids, "catch'em young"!

They successfully shifted blame from sugar to fat as cause of modern lifestyle
diseases for last two decades. Would highly recommend the book "Case against
Sugar" by Gary Taubes discussed amply here[0] and here[1].

Also recommend the documentary "Super Size Me"[2] a revealing take on workings
of fast food industry.

[0][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12480733](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12480733)

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15521882](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15521882)

[2][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgcc_ZZnAgM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgcc_ZZnAgM)

~~~
HedgeSparrow
I agree with you for the first two points, but Supersize Me is a sham of
science.

------
gerardnll
'We’ve long known that processed sugar is bad for kids.' Why 'for kids'? It's
bad for everyone. People don't realize sugar is the most socially accepted and
legal drug ever and with more addicts I would say.

There's plenty of studies that talk about how bad are added sugars.
Governments don't do enough to contain this drug.

WHO recommends free sugars to be less than 10% of daily calorie intake. And
suggests going down to 5%. Source:
[http://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/guidelines/sugar_i...](http://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/guidelines/sugar_intake_information_note_en.pdf)
An adult that takes 2000 calories, should not take more than 25g of free
sugars. Now tell me if it's easy for you to not go over the limit.

Kids and todlers food has more sugar than adult processed food, maybe so they
create a dependency on sugary products since they are babies? And so they buy
these products when they are older.

We've all seen kids asking cookies and shitty food instead of vegetables (or
unprocessed food), they get angry and parents have to say 'no, you've to have
lunch now'. Isn't that strange? We are so used to this.

Food is not only calories. Quality of ingredients matter. Plenty of studies
relate refined oils, flours, sugars to cancer, diabetes, heart problems.
Cheap, easy to get != healthy. It's cheap and unhealthy because ingredients
are low quality.

Was processed food in supermarkets a hundred years ago? Humans don't need it.
Of course food is safer than 100 years ago, but also processed food has pulled
apart healthy and unprocessed food from our diets.

Nestle, Coca-Cola, Unilever, they are in universities, associations, etc... we
see plenty of cases here in Spain. They do courses for professionals... and
they are the brands with the best public perception. And we say advertising
doesn't work?

So many inputs when you go to a supermarket and so easy to fall for a
chocolate bar, for some cereals, sweetened yogurts, refined flours white
breads... Then, they try to sell you some (supposedly healthy) food because it
has some part of bio unrefined flours, but it's the same disguised as healthy.

To avoid all these games they play you just have to look for vegetables, fish,
(some) meat, dairy products, eggs, fruits, dried fruits... just unprocessed
food or foods like canned peas and other minimal treated foods were a physical
process like boiling has been applied.

~~~
Regardsyjc
Do you have any book recommendations or resources for eating healthier?

~~~
jm__87
I just read "Always Hungry" by David Ludwig and it is pretty good. I like the
fact the book has a number of recipes as well. If you're trying to lose fat,
then really the key is just eat a diet that keeps insulin low. There has been
a lot written on this topic, so you should be able to find information on this
very easily if you haven't come across this idea already.

With that being said, I've found that cutting out sugar and fast digesting
carbs isn't hard due to not knowing what foods to eat, but it is hard because
you have to plan meals and it can be psychologically difficult, especially at
first. You have to plan meals and cook since it is near impossible to find
food that aren't packed with sugar or fast digesting carbohydrates. This
requires a time investment and potentially clearing up some time in your
schedule. If you are someone who rarely cooks, this is a huge change. Some
psychological barriers that I have personally experienced:

\- Dispelling beliefs like "Life is not worth living without beer".

\- Finding healthier ways of managing stress than eating sugary food, fast
digesting carbs or drinking.

\- Not just eating or drinking something because you're out with
friends/family and they are doing it.

\- Turning down offers from coworkers for unhealthy snacks at work.

\- Having a reason to continue on the diet such that you won't just quit when
things get tough.

\- Getting through the initial stress of taking sugar and fast digesting carbs
out of your diet since your body and brain will be used to using that as fuel
and you have to initially feel worse before you feel better.

If only we lived in a world where most of our food wasn't garbage and most
people didn't eat garbage, then all of this would be so much easier.

------
sundvor
Wow... ${expletives}. It is all starting to make sense to me now.

Ref what I wrote on
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17017920](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17017920)
:

"As a Norwegian, when I visited Boston in 1999 for an Allaire dev conference I
saw more grossly fat / obese people in the _hour_ spent switching flights at
Newark airport than I had in my (then) home country in the preceding year. I
was really taken aback."

I never got my now 7y son into juices etc and Coke products are generally
banned in our home. He has a very healthy body weight, so that's one fewer
thing he has to worry about whilst growing up.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I was in Copenhagen earlier this year and I commented to my wife and our
friends multiple times on how there were just no obese people anywhere. You
Scandinavians are obviously doing something right.

~~~
jernfrost
A lot of that comes down to much stronger belief in government regulation and
initiative. In the US it seems there is an outrage every time somebody
suggests some kind of regulation to promote health and welfare.

I suspect that outrage is partly manufactured by the sugar and junk food
industry though.

Copenhagen is also very active in getting people to bike in town instead of
driving.

------
jordan801
There's a huge problem in the US with what we describe as healthy. Cereal is a
huge culprit. All cereals say they're "a healthy part of a balanced
breakfast". But almost all of them contain an absolutely ridiculous amount of
sugar. Cookie-crisps, golden grams and cinnamon toast crunch are absolutely
not a healthy meal. It's disgusting that it can be called such.

I hope cereal sounds as blasphemous in the future as the old 50's soda
commercials do now. "It's never too early to start your child on a soda
regimen. Soda is proven to help your teen fit in". [ EDIT: Apparently this
soda commercial was fake ]

~~~
chimeracoder
> "It's never too early to start your child on a soda regimen. Soda is proven
> to help your teen fit in"."

FYI, that ad was fake: [http://rjwhite.tumblr.com/post/472668874/fact-
checking](http://rjwhite.tumblr.com/post/472668874/fact-checking)

~~~
jordan801
Oh good! I was shocked when I saw that. Guess I should probably double check
when I see stuff like that. Thanks!

------
willtim
The food industry needs a lot more regulation IMHO. It often misleads the
consumer with its marketing, but a cereal or juice drink is not healthy when
it's rammed full of sugar.

~~~
spodek
> food industry

When you refine the addictive, pleasure-causing white powder out of a plant
and make cocaine or heroine we call it a drug. For historical reasons when we
do it to make sugar we call it food, but it seems more of a drug.

Maybe drug regulations should apply.

~~~
wilsonnb2
> For historical reasons

Seems more likely that it's because people eat sugar, and they don't eat
heroin or cocaine.

~~~
pofilat
People chew and brew coca like coffee and tea

------
spodek
> _The study found that toddlers 12 to 18 months consumed 5.5 teaspoons per
> day, and that toddlers 19 to 23 months consumed 7.1 teaspoons._

 _Toddlers consumed_? More like parents fed them. Toddlers eat what's put in
front of them.

> _parents might want to consider cutting soft drinks, fruit drinks, . . ._

"might want to consider*?!?!

Might they want to consider not giving the kids cocaine too?

~~~
ebikelaw
The parents at my kids’ school talk about “trying” to get their kids to eat
right. I just dont get it. You want them to eat something? You give it to
them! If you don't want them to eat something then don't put it on the table.
This could not be simpler. My kids beg for chard and broccoli.

~~~
protonimitate
I think in America there is a huge misconception on what 'hungry' actually
is/feels like.

People think that if you don't stuff your kid 3 times a day with massive
quantities of food, they will fade away over night. It's very easy to refuse
food and be picky when you are not truly hungry.

My personal rule of thumb is if my least favorite food doesn't sound edible, I
don't actually need to eat.

~~~
neutronicus
I've got a nephew-to-be in Israel who's a really picky eater, and his parents
resort to bribing him sugar to get him to eat healthier stuff.

But, like, the kid is demonstrably underweight for his age, shorter than all
his classmates, etc. So I don't know if just starving him is the right call
either. Some people (you) get lucky and don't have to make the decision, but
sometimes it actually _is_ hard to get kids to eat.

------
sharcerer
I see this happening a lot. For eg, on youtube I often see Casey neistat
buying candies,marshmallow candy for his daughter. Now i am not targeting
him.just pointing out what i notice.(he has made great videos on actual calory
content in butgers etc).He also has some juice many a times after runs, i
dunno whether that's healthy juice without sugar. But, basically parents give
in to kid's demands. Also, lack of suitable choices. I am in India, and even
see poor mothers,kids purchasing chips or eating some refined flour item on
roadside coz it's easily available. Also, a while ago i read that in Brazil
,Nestle has these agents who sell nestle food poducts door2door, also obesity
has risen due to high consumption of cheap ,packaged products like Nestle's.
Big Food,Big Oil are the most prime corporate evils whose actions will be felt
for many decades to come. I guess there are food startups trying to make good
products, but haven't heard of a lot. I dunno whether their low sugar
initiatives aee actually good, i mean it's obvious that after a cetain time
they will have to change or perish but the question is how long.

~~~
Applejinx
Fruit juice IS sugar, whether they add HFCS or not. There's really not
significant difference between kinds of sugars biologically, the amount of
sugar you can take in from juiced fruits is astronomical.

~~~
bildung
Just for completeness: The _actual_ fruits are fine, though. Something (fibers
play a part, but apparently can't explain the whole effect) in the whole
fruits changes the absorbtion.

~~~
Sargos
It takes 3-6 apples to make a glass of apple juice. It's easy to drink a glass
of apple juice and want another but nobody is going to eat 3-6 apples. That's
a key difference.

------
bsaul
Recently spent a month in SF after having spent a month in japan : US needs to
restart its food habits from scratch. yes, you can eat very healthily if
you’re ready to spend 40$ per meal ( either in restaurants or buying in
organic groceries), but anything under that price will get you fat,
sweeten,artifically flavored, huge piles of sh __*t.

And this was SF. I can’t even imagine how it’s like in the average US city.

~~~
halflings
> if you’re ready to spend 40$ per meal ( either in restaurants or buying in
> organic groceries), but anything under that price will get you fat,
> sweeten,artifically flavored, huge piles of sh*t.

This is really exaggerated. I lived in SF, and would easily prepare healthy
meals for ~$6-8 per meal ($2-3 for some proteins, $1 or less for some portion
of rice or some bread, and the rest for vegetables). Maybe $10 max if I felt
like eating avocado :)

For one thing, healthy != organic. As much as pesticides are harmful on the
long run, the biggest health hazard is the type of food you consume, not its
provenance. Eating bananas or some oatmeal instead of pop tarts and Oreos
saves you money.

~~~
samsonradu
You used the word _prepare_. Plenty of people do not have that option, either
because they're in a hurry or they don't live nearby or, like in my case,
they're tourists. Though I agree that SF is better than other places, having
more health-ish food shops, overall US-wise it's not easy to avoid sugars.

~~~
halflings
GP spent a month in SF so I assumed they weren't a tourist. They also
mentioned organic groceries so they included cooked meals in this. Even if you
eat out, you won't have to pay $40 for a healthy meal. You can get something
good for $15-20, which is still pretty expensive... but not $40, and not
significantly more expensive than comparable unhealthy foods; of course
McDonalds is cheaper, but then again unless we're talking about people that
have no money to spare, it's more likely they're choosing unhealthy food
rather than being forced to buy it.

------
chriselles
I went strict ketogenic diet(high fat, protein, very low carb, zero sugar) 16
weeks ago.

I’ve dropped 20kg in that time and just last week ran a marathon carrying a
25kg pack in 5 hours 48 minutes with just an 11 week train up.

Zero sugar diet has been a massive positive game changer for me.

You can still have desserts that don’t require sugar!

The only difficulty with it has been the struggle of what/where to eat when
traveling.

It now really clicks for me after several years of putting the pieces of the
puzzle together.

3 years ago I met a cohort of middle aged male vets from a specific military
unit with a work culture where sugar was viewed as poison for the 40 years
since this community’s inception.

They all seemed noticeably younger than their actual years.

I’d like to learn if telomere length is shortened by sugar consumption and
conversely lengthened by the absence of sugar in your diet.

------
Timpy
Taking responsibility for your health is discouraging in America. You have to
go through great lengths to avoid added sugars, companies hide or obscure the
amount of sugar they're putting in their product. I'm tired of feeling like I
have to defend myself from the people trying to sell me things, it's difficult
trying to make decisions that are best for me when multi-billion dollar
companies are doing everything they can to manipulate me into consuming their
products.

~~~
jernfrost
I hear you. When we took our baby to the US on vacation I found it really hard
to find appropriate food. American baby food had added salt and sugar which is
illegal to add to baby food in Norway. We have the opposite "problem". There
is no way to find baby food jars with salt or added sugar. That can't be sold
in the store.

I don't get why America is so against regulation like this to promote the
welfare of the most previous thing in people's lives. Do corporate interests
really have that much power?

~~~
Timpy
>Do corporate interests really have that much power?

In short, yes.

~~~
jernfrost
Why isn't there more political engagement to change that? Like pass laws to
limit corporate influence?

------
azinman2
The article didn’t really mention the sources. It’s hard to believe the quotes
sugar from drinks are being given to toddlers, but perhaps that’s in the form
of juice?

~~~
philliphaydon
Does it matter if it’s fruit juice sugar? Fruit juice sugar is already bad for
kids let alone fruit juice with added sugar which is basically most fruit
juices you buy. It’s really hard to find 100% fruit juice.

~~~
labster
Hard to find fruit juice? All I have to do is go to the supermarket, and look
through a few bottles until I find one that says 100% fruit juice. (Alternate
plan: go to back yard, collect oranges, juice them). Compare that harrowing
experience to a hunter-gatherer, sheesh.

~~~
philliphaydon
Yeah. Look at them. Because the vast majority have added sugar. That’s my
point is it’s more common for fruit juices to have added sugar than to be
100%. Which doesn’t help parents who think they are doing good by buying juice
rather than coke for their kid.

~~~
emmanuel_1234
Even though it doesn't matter. Freshly squeezed juice from your garden have
about 114g of carbs / liter (of which 90g of sugar). Coke has 110g of carbs /
liter (all sugar).

Yes, coke has more sugar, but it's the same order of magnitude, fruit juice,
even freshly squeezed from pure organic oranges is very much comparable to
soda.

~~~
raarts
Fruits are the sweets of nature. Don't eat too much of them.

~~~
mkl
Fruit is okay, but fruit _juice_ is another story. Without the fibre it's
digested quite differently and is not very good for you.

------
ponderatul
Who needs conspiracies when you have pure greed and unmanaged corporate
interests.

------
partycoder
The problem with sugar is that there's no daily recommended value... because
that value would be 0.

A "safe value" for an adult would probably be up to 40g. A can of soda has
exactly that amount.

Now imagine a kid eating cereal, snacks, then soda... can probably end up
having 160g of sugar in a day, or about 38 teaspoons.

------
zby
What is really the difference between what we call sugar and regular
carbohydrates that constitute a huge part of our diet? They all enter the
blood stream as monosaccharides. There is difference in how fast this happens
- but is that so important?

~~~
paulsutter
Table sugar is half fructose half dextrose. Fructose is metabolized through
the liver similar to alcohol, whereas dextrose is glucose and metabolized like
a simple carb.

Fructose has been increasing as a percent of daily calories since the 70s as a
consequence of attempts to reduce fat, and this is the likely cause behind the
massive increase in diabetes.

~~~
refurb
Table sugar is half fructose and half _glucose_.

~~~
mrob
Dextrose is an alternative name for D-glucose (the naturally occurring isomer
of glucose). The parent comment even said "dextrose is glucose".

------
cimmanom
Try, for a week, tracking the total amount of sugar you consume each day. If
you live in the US, it's likely to be shockingly higher than you might have
guessed. For instance, a single "protein bar" can provide 3/4 of your
recommended daily sugar intake (for a man) or 100% (for a woman).

Getting in the habit of checking utrition labels also reveals some surprises
and frustrations. In the average American grocery store, try to find a single
cold breakfast cereal with less than 5g of sugar per serving.

~~~
jacobolus
There are plenty of breakfast cereals like that: Cheerios, Chex, Rice
Krispies, Corn flakes, Wheaties, Grape nuts, Life, Shredded wheat, ....

They are still pure processed carbs, not really the best regular breakfast.

~~~
cimmanom
I thought that too. And then I actually checked the nutrition labels for
Cheerios and Rice Krispies, etc.

Of the ones you listed, only Shredded Wheat has less than 5g sugar per
serving.

~~~
jacobolus
Cheerios is 1g sugar per cup of cereal according to the label on the box in my
pantry, etc.

~~~
cimmanom
Are you in the US? Last I looked in the grocery store (about 3 months ago), it
was 9g.

~~~
jacobolus
[http://www.generalmills.com/~/media/Images/Brands/Nutritiona...](http://www.generalmills.com/~/media/Images/Brands/Nutritional_Images/Big_G/Cheerios.JPG)

You were probably looking at one of the sugar-added variants like Honey Nut
Cheerios, Very Berry Cheerios, Chocolate Cheerios, Frosted Cheerios, ...

~~~
cimmanom
I suppose that's possible. Anyway, the rest of the cereals in that list do
have significant amounts of sugar per serving.

~~~
jacobolus
The rest on my list were all <5g of sugar per serving. I explicitly checked
most of them.

There are several other similar commonly available breakfast cereals which
also have <5g of sugar per serving.

I can believe that your particular market didn’t stock any of the 50-year-old
classic cereal brands and only stocked sugar-added cereals (frosted this,
honey that, marshmallow everything), but among American markets I have seen it
is typical to have at least 4 or 5 choices of low-sugar cold breakfast cereals
on the shelf, as well as several choices of low-sugar hot cereals. [Of course,
as I said before, they are all still pure processed carbs, and not the best
regular breakfast.]

------
gameswithgo
It is being discovered that obesity in kids also lowers their IQs. Obesity is
one of the reasons US healthcare is so expensive as well. There are some
things we can do to put a dent in this that should appeal to both left and
right leaning Americans - like ending subsides on foods used to make sugar
(corn). If there are any influential people in the thread, I can't imagine why
we can't make this happen, this is a crisis.

------
kwhitefoot
In my household sugary drinks were only allowed occasionally, otherwise the
children just drank water. Now that they are grown up they continue to drink
mostly water. It helps that we live in a small town in Norway that has very
good water. If we had to drink water from some of the places I have visited in
the US the story might have been different as the water tasted so bad. I
suppose we would have bought bottled water.

~~~
sundvor
Agreed Norwegian water was great. I recall when I grew up in Fredrikstad, Coca
Cola was always the go-to drink #1 at parties etc. They did a stellar job
inserting themselves.

Fortunately those were the only occasions when we'd have it, and as kids we
were far more active back then - roaming the streets and forests, so we had
more than enough activity to offset.

My son's grown up on water after the breast and has very little interest in
soft drinks now, not that we encourage him to try them out.

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vfc1
One of the worst things in terms of sugar is Coke and sodas in general, one
can of 330ml has 7 teaspoons in it.

The only thing that prevents us from throwing it up immediately is the
ascorbic acid.

This is an epidemic that needs strong legislation. The use of sugar, salt, and
fat in food needs to be regulated otherwise it's an arms race for brands that
just keep adding all 3 to their products.

~~~
hocuspocus
> This is an epidemic that needs strong legislation. The use of sugar, salt,
> and fat in food needs to be regulated otherwise it's an arms race for brands
> that just keep adding all 3 to their products.

Lobbying from the food industry is extremely powerful and pervasive. They're
using the same playbook as the tobacco industry a few decades ago. For
instance the traffic light nutrition labels (that I believe originated from
the UK) were shot down at the EU level, under the pretense of not stigmatizing
the important gastronomic heritage in several European countries.

------
tapatio
*EVERYBODY is eating more sugar than they should be. It's an epidemic. Shame on Starbucks for raising the price of regular coffee while not raising the prices of their sugary drinks. If they really cared about their customers they would lower the price of regular coffee and raise the price of the sugary crap.

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nicwolff
The link text on this post incorrectly generalizes from the information on the
linked page, which says

 _The study found that toddlers 12 to 18 months consumed 5.5 teaspoons per
day, and that toddlers 19 to 23 months consumed 7.1 teaspoons. This is close
to, or more than, the amount of sugar recommended by AHA for adult women (six
teaspoons) and men (nine teaspoons)._

------
tabtab
I suspect mothering instincts are at play, based on observation. If a kid
appears to not be eating enough, mothers get really worried. Sugary foods
"fix" the problem quickly. Instincts and biological urges are powerful and
override rational behavior on many fronts (no pun intended).

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gdilla
Lucked out. My son loves fruit since his baby days, so he doesn't like
artificially sweet candy (or can self moderate pretty well). Halloween candy
just piles up year after year. His school here bans candy in packed lunches
too.

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ainiriand
As it should be, sugar is a reward for the body and only very occasionally
should be eaten. 0 sugar should be the norm. Maybe you can have some cookies
or homemade pastry on a special day but that's it, the rest is harming you.

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JoshMnem
It probably helps to set a good example for kids. I eliminated nearly all
sugar about three years ago and highly recommend it. Food is fuel, not a
recreational drug. Added sugar is purely recreational.

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maxxxxx
Just look at the size of candy bars. When I was a kid the candy bars were at
Max half the size of what i see now in stores. Same for ice cream scoops. They
are a full meal today.

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elvirs
there is sugar in absolutely everything in America. Bread, cereal, oatmeal,
any drink, even canned tomatoes have sugar in them. I don't know whats
american food manufacturers' obsession with putting sugar into everything. The
govt should mandate a huge warning label on foods that contains more than 1%
sugar in it just like they did with cigarettes. May be then manufacturers will
be discouraged from supplementing nutritious ingredients with the poison
called sugar.

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TurboHaskal
I fail to see the issue here. Toddlers need plenty of energy and calorie dense
food, unlike the average sedentary American.

~~~
Freak_NL
Childhood obesity is a growing concern. The idea is that growing up with a
healthy eating pattern can prevent obesity and other health problems, because
changing ingrained habits is very hard. Eating healthy (i.e., eating normally)
can be a valuable part of their education.

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golemotron
The scariest part of this article is that there is still an amount of sugar
that is recommended for adults.

~~~
frockington
What makes a recommended dose of sugar scarier than childhood obesity? I'd
rather there was some guideline than none at all

------
WalterSear
Good thing they aren't adults, then.

