Spanish children consume 55.7 grams of added sugars per day, more than double the 25 grams recommended (maximum) by the WHO, and only 35% comes from foods with high nutrient content. These are data collected in a study by the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology of the University of Granada (UGR). The report was published last January in the journal Nutrients and this Thursday the results were presented at a press conference. The authors have highlighted the need to review the diet of children to prioritize foods that provide more nutrients and less added sugars, as well as the reformulation of products by the food industry. These figures are "very worrying", warned Jesús Francisco Rodríguez, professor of Physiology at the UGR and lead author of the research.
65% of the added sugars consumed by children on a daily basis come from foods and products with a low nutrient density, such as cocoa powder, biscuits and soft drinks. The remaining 35% do get them from foods with more nutrient intake, such as dairy desserts, breakfast cereals, packaged shakes with at least 90% milk and sugary or flavored yogurts.
Milk (of high nutritional density) is the food most consumed by children and, among others, provides them with essential nutrients such as protein, calcium, and vitamin A, said Rodríguez. The product best valued by experts is enriched infant milk. This category provides twice as many nutrients as regular milk and contains less than 5 grams per serving, so it is "an opportunity to improve the dietary pattern," they say.
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The authors have expressed concern about the high frequency with which other products, such as biscuits and cocoa powder, are consumed, with more than 10.3 and 7.3 grams of additional sugars per serving, respectively. This makes them the foods that provide more extra sugars to children, although their nutritional contribution is low. On the other hand, breakfast cereals and smoothies with at least 90% milk each provide 6% of the added sugars. These last two, according to the researchers, can be maintained in the diet as long as the total consumption of added sugars remains below what is advised by the WHO.
Parents' perception
Something that has surprised the authors is the misperception of some parents about the nutritional profile of the foods they give their children. They consider that products such as energy drinks, chocolate bars or ice cream have a normal nutritional quality, but all of them provide more than 15 grams per serving of additional sugars. The same thing happens with cookies, although they have somewhat less extra sugar (10 grams per serving), and are very present in children's diets.
The work highlights the confusion of families about homemade pastries, such as biscuits, which believe that it has a nutritional profile similar to that of fortified milk, although in reality each serving contains 17 grams of additional sugars and is of low nutritional contribution. "It seems that what we do at home is healthy, but the added sugars are still there," said María Dolores Mesa-García, professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the UGR and also author of the study.
One of the main conclusions of the research is that the nutritional value of a food should not be determined only by the amount of additional sugars it contains. You also have to take into account the rest of the nutrients it can provide. "In the context of a healthy and nutritionally adequate diet, occasional consumption of products with low nutritional quality could be maintained, provided that the content of added sugars is low or moderate," said Rodríguez, professor of Physiology at the UGR.
Another bet is the reformulation of products that provide added sugars and that are very present in the diet of children. In addition, the authors have also recommended that families accustom children to less sweet flavors in order to progressively reduce the amount of extra sugars in food. One of his recommendations is to add fruit to homemade pastries to have to put less sugar in the recipe.
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