Sugar
Kids are eating and drink over 2 times more sugar than they should! Most of this is from unhealthy snacks and sugary drinks.
Sugar swaps
Swap out the most sugary foods your children have, with some healthier swaps.
Sugary snack / drink: Swap:
- Fizzy drinks and fruit juice Fruit slices in water
- Buns, cakes, pastries, biscuits Cheese cubes, monkey nuts, meat slices
- Breakfast cereals, flavoured yoghurts Greek yoghurt with berries
- Sweets, chocolate, ice cream Frozen yoghurt, dark chocolate squares, chopped fruit
Sugar Tips
Cooking with children is the very best way to get them excited about eating different food. Cooking with other children shows them that the ingredients and recipes are accepted by their peers making they are more likely to try new foods.
Why should kids cut down on sugar?
Too much sugar is bad for children’s health. It can cause harmful fat to build up around organs inside the body that we can’t see. Over time this fat can cause weight gain and serious diseases like type 2 diabetes, which people are getting younger than ever before, and heart disease and some cancers. eating and drinking sugary food regularly also leads to painful tooth decay, the most common reason for a child to be admitted to hospital in the UK.
Fortunately all of this is preventable. We just need to change our everyday habits and say no to the lollies.
How much sugar is too much?
The MAXIMUM daily amounts of added sugar are:
Sadly children’s cereals are horrendously high in sugar.
