Worried Experts Sour On Sugar

(eDiets) - Well, it’s NOT news to me! It has been common knowledge for a long time that obesity has become a huge worldwide problem. Now it’s official. The World Health Organization (WHO) has soured on sugar. Obesity is a health problem that’s not going away.

Obesity is also a well-known contributing factor to many diseases, and the WHO recently issued a report recommending limiting consumption of added sugar to less than 10 percent of daily calories. The report also recommended eating more grains and less fat -- and exercising more (at least 60 minutes daily).

The USA isn’t the only nation with a huge obesity problem. Great Britain and other parts of Europe have seen an upswing in obesity. Obesity is even becoming a real problem in countries that formerly focused on malnutrition as their primary health worry.

The relationship between sugar and obesity is not new. It seems to me that everyone -- from health experts on down to children -- knows that we’re eating too much sugar, fat, processed and fast food. We’re a nation of couch potatoes and we need to get up, out and physical. But, today’s report is a first in that it focuses on one ingredient in the diet.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government does not support the evidence that excessive sugar consumption and obesity are linked. But the truth is obvious. In 1997, Americans spent more than $54 billion on 53 billion liters of soda.

Kids drink more soda than milk and school vending machines are placed prominently next to cafeterias. Today’s teens drink at least one to two cans daily, and more than 12 percent of kids are obese, three times that of kids in the 1980s. Soda, juice and fruit drinks are the liquids of choice for kids, and health experts fear a rise in the degenerative bone disease osteoporosis due to a subsequent decrease in calcium in the diets of growing children.

Sugar features prominently in most American kids’ diets. Each can of soda contains 9 added teaspoons of sugar. Kids' breakfast cereals are vehicles for sugar. Even formerly healthy brands have all been transformed into vehicles for sugar: Shredded Wheat, Corn Flakes, Cheerios and Rice Krispies now all have sugared versions. Pop Tarts, pastries, Juicy Juice... the first ingredient in all of these products is sugar!

How many ways can you say sugar?

High fructose corn syrup is the number one sweetener and the main ingredient in soda after water. Fructose, or fruit sugar, is still just sugar. If it’s “natural” is it better? No. It’s still sugar. Brown sugars, honey, molasses, maple syrup and fruit juice concentrate all are sugar. Anything that ends in “ose” is sugar. Maltose... dextrose... fructose... sucrose... yep, all sugars! Sugar contains calories (four calories per gram), has no obvious nutritive value and causes dental decay.

How to lower the sugar in your diet.

To lower the sugar in your diet, read the food label. Ingredients are listed in order of prominence. If you’re looking for a healthy cereal, make sure the number one ingredient is a grain -- preferably a whole grain, such as whole wheat, whole rye or whole oats. You can see how much added sugar is in a serving. Remember that four grams of sugar equal one teaspoon. Choose a cereal with as little added sugar as possible.

You control the sugar! Add your own and develop a taste for less. Avoid soda, juice and fruit juice drinks. Soda is the number one offender -- the quickest way of getting empty calories that we know. Juice is not a good alternative. It has just as much sugar as soda with just a bit of vitamins and minerals (but not enough to make up for the calories).

My best advice is to eat your fruit, don’t drink it. When you eat fruit you gain the benefit of fiber in addition to the other good nutrition. Fruit drinks are essentially flavored and sugared water with the same calories as soda. Drink water, low-fat milk or fortified soymilk.

Did You Know?

The rate of kids' dental cavities is soaring! Parents put apple juice in the bottle instead of milk and the result is rotting baby teeth. What a traumatic experience: anesthetizing children to pull teeth. Poor kids! Save your child's teeth. If you are putting him, her or them to bed with a bottle, make it a bottle of water, not juice.