- It's called 'Sugarometer' and is used to calculate how much sugar is consumed in a single day.
Easy to use tool, it will be useful for parents and pediatricians to control the intake of sugars in the diet of children and adolescents and improve their nutrition.
It can be found on the website 'educazionenutrizioni.granapadano.it/it/zuccherometro/'.
Just click on the foods that are consumed daily and after having indicated the quantity, the software adds up the simple sugars consumed in a day by males and females from 2 to 17 years, measuring both the sugar naturally present in the food, and that added during the processing of bakery products, ice cream, creams, and more, such as sucrose and fructose.
After having exposed the sum of the teaspoons of sugar consumed in a day, the program compares it with the amount of sugar that should instead be taken according to the Larn (Reference Intake Levels for the Italian Population) and proposes healthier alternative foods with less sugar.
"In addition to the excessive consumption of sugar, in recent years the intake of fructose added to drinks and food has increased - explains Claudio Maffeis, professor of Pediatrics at the University of Verona, and President of the Italian Society of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetology - This contributes to the appearance of fatty liver and the increase in circulating levels of lipids and has been indicated as one of the factors promoting excess weight and metabolic syndrome. "
According to the Larn, the consumption of sugars (present in food and added) should be limited to quantities of less than 15% of the energy introduced daily, so an 8-year-old male child should on average consume no more than 7-8 teaspoons of sugar in a day , including that naturally contained in the food.
An intake of sugars greater than 25% of the total daily energy must be avoided - the experts conclude - especially in Italy where there is a significant number of overweight and obese children.
(HANDLE).