How Much Sugar for Kids

Posted on 17. Jan, 2012 by Emily in Food & Drink, Health

How Much Sugar for Kids – It’s no secret that kids love sugar, but how much is appropriate without jeopardizing a child’s health? This is a question I’ve longed to know the answer for– as I’ve heard from numerous sources that white, processed sugar is awful for your body. Not only does it rot your teeth out (does it?) but it has been connected to depression.

How Much Sugar for Kids

Most things are alright in moderation– but does the same go for sugar? I started doing some research to look further into the subject. What I found was somewhat disturbing. While sugar may not be the best for you, most experts say that it’s okay in small amounts. The disturbing thing that I found out was that most Americans don’t eat it in small amounts– instead the average American consumes 22 teaspoons of the sweet stuff a day.

Take a teaspoon, a bowl, and your baking sugar out. Put 22 teaspoons into the bowl and really absorb just how much that is. Imagine that you kids are eating this amount, if not more!

Even more terrifying is the fact that teenagers eat about 34 teaspoons of sugar a day.

All ages should be eating less than 10 teaspoons of sugar a day. More on that later.

Let’s take a look at just how bad sugar is for kids (and adults) before we jump into what the appropriate amount is.

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Sugar rots kids’ teeth. The bacteria in your mouth turn the sugar to acid and it goes to town on your enamel. This is especially true with soda and hard candies, which is why so many kids get cavities.

Sugar can make your kid obese. Childhood obesity is at epidemic levels in this country– and sugar might be the culprit. Just a few teaspoons of sugar can lead to an excess amount of calories. Letting your kid eat sugary snacks all day long will create a struggle with being overweight for the rest of their lives.

Sugar can affect your child’s immune system. Eating sugar slows down your immune system, practically to a crawl. It essentially paralyzes your white blood cells, which are essential to fight off bacteria and viruses.

Sugar can make your kid depressed. Sugar gives a spike in serotonin, or the happy chemical in your brain, but then it dips after the sugar spike is gone. Essentially, high consumption of sugar in kid will disrupt the natural balance of serotonin that their brain produces making them more prone to depression.

It’s scary but true. Sugar is terrible for growing children. If your child’s daily diet includes a lot of the following: sugary cereal, chocolate milk, pudding, and soda– you must do something to change this!

In reality your child should be consuming possibly one sweet a day. This could be a cookie after dinner or lunch, half a candy bar, etc. Anything more borders on dangerous. There are plenty of healthy alternatives for people who have a sweet tooth. Fruit, semi-sweetened dark chocolate, small amounts of honey/maple-syrup sweetened cereals.

As a rule of thumb, women are supposed to consume no more than 6 teaspoons of sugar a day and men 9 teaspoons. Keep your kids’ consumption of the sweet stuff around this level, if not lower.

If you’re going to cook or bake with sugar, it’s been recommended that you go for organic, cane sugar.

It might be hard to cut sugar out of your family’s diet, but at the end of the day you’ll be glad you did it!