German researchers report consumption of ‘free sugar’ by children is down. But it’s still well above the level recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). And we have some way yet to go to beat obesity’s leading cause…
It’s a good news / bad news situation. But the good outweighs the bad. Largely because the good news is, we are on the way to beating the leading cause of the global obesity crisis.
‘Free’ sugars
That’s the umbrella term WHO uses to cover, “any form of sugar, including honey, syrup and fruit juice concentrates added by a manufacturer, or when preparing food and beverages at home. Free sugar also includes sugar naturally occurring in juices.”
It’s commonly referred to as ‘excess’ sugar in the mainstream media and online.
The crisis
As those in tune with the food and health sphere will well know, the global obesity picture has reached crisis proportions in the post-COVID era. Recent surveys reveal that up to 2/3 of all folks in North America and Europe are overweight or obese. And that’s not only shortening lives, but costing health care systems hundreds of billions of dollars every year. And we need that money to deal with the climate change crisis.
One of the chief drivers of the obesity epidemic is excess sugar. It’s coming mainly from processed foods, which are infamous for delivering large amounts of excess sugar, salt and fat. It’s a perfect dietary storm. Other studies show most of us are getting a much as 2/3 of our daily calories from processed and ultra-processed foods.
First, the good news…
A team at at the University of Bonn, Germany, has determined that consumption of ‘free’ sugar among children and adolescents has declined significantly since 2010.
The researchers analysed 4,218 sets of dietary records by 751 children and adolescents between ages three and 18 over the years 2010-2023.
A previous analysis, in 2019, showed that sugar consumption among kids began to decline in 2005. By 2016, yet another survey showed the percentage of kids’ average daily calories contributed by sugar was around 16 percent. That figure has since subsided further, to just under 12 percent.
Sounds like really good news. And it is.
Now, the bad news…
However… The World Health Organization (WHO) says we should be getting no more than 10 percent of our daily Calories from ‘free sugars’.
And the Bonn survey doesn’t include the largest segment of society – adults over 18 and under 65 – who are driving the obesity crisis. We’re set in our ways. And collateral research shows that the majority of adults who follow the ubiquitous Western Diet are actually addicted to processed and ultra-processed foods.
It’s hard enough to resist temptation and cut down on stuff you like. But it’s almost impossible to kick an addiction. Just ask cocaine or heroin users.
The takeaway
I see the Bonn study as proof that the measures we’re taking to raise awareness of the dangers of processed foods, and excess sugar in particular, are working on the impressionable set. The kids are apparently going to be alright. The study report notes that younger kids still get around 15 percent of their calories from free sugar. But sugar consumption falls off ‘significantly’ from age 15 through the late teens. And they’ll likely carry into adulthood the eating habits they’re consolidating then.
It’s the adults I’m concerned about. I’m a Boomer. And I know too well that, unless I make a concert-ed effort to include beneficial foods in my diet and exclude unhealthy ones, I’m all too likely to fall back into the sloppy, uninformed eating habits I developed in my pre-college years.
The bigger a vehicle is, the harder it is to turn it. So it is with social and cultural issues. But it appears we have succeeded in changing the formerly destructive course of the obesity crisis to a more posi-tive direction. But we have to keeping fighting…
~ Maggie J.