Sugar- are you eating too much?

This week Public Health England launched a new Change4Life public health campaign with the statistics that many children are consuming half the daily recommended sugar intake at breakfast
the campaign has an app where you can find out how much sugar is in everyday products.

the National Diet and Nutrition Survey  collects detailed, quantitative information on the food consumption, nutrient intake and nutritional status of the general population aged 1.5 years and over living in private households in the UK. The survey covers a representative sample of around 1,000 people per year.the most recent data concludes that while children's consumption of sugary drinks has declined it is still too high.

Much of the consumption of sugar is blamed on soft drinks See this recent paper from the BMJ which surveys calories and sugar in different types of drink. The BBC website has a list of those containing the most sugar. However coffee served by major chains often contains large amounts of sugar. Find out who are the culprits by reading this study from the Guardian
Also to blame are many breakfast cereals. See Action on Salt 2015 survey of nutritional content to identify those with high sugar and salt levels.
Action on Sugar regularly links to recent studies on the impact of sugar consumption on health

On a global scale the US Department of Agriculture publishes biannual surveys of sugar production and consumption trends. This recent paper from the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics. For children aged 4–10 years, sugars consumption data were compared for  16 countries including intakes of total sugars (12 countries), added sugars (seven countries) and sucrose (five countries) Total sugar intakes expressed as a percentage of total energy (%TE) ranged from 17% in 3–10‐year‐olds in Italy to 34.8% for 4–6‐year‐old girls in the Netherlands

Further information

See our earlier blog on the proposed sugar tax which includes links to proposals and responses from the industry.
Search for references to health related articles on Pubmed