Excessive sugar consumption has been proven to cause various health problems. Not only in adults, children can experience health problems due to excessive sugar. Moreover, the age of the child is aged again happy food sweet foods or drink sweet drinks such as milk.
Therefore, it should not be arbitrary to provide drinks and sweet foods for children. Sugar intake in children must be limited.
Actually, what is meant by sugar?
Sugar is the simplest structure of carbohydrates. Sugar functions as the main energy producer for the body. Of course sugar is very important for your child as a fuel for daily activities.
There are several types of sugar that you can find, such as glucose, fructose, or sucrose. Fructose and sucrose are sugars which are often added in drinks and packaged foods. For example in sweet drinks, in paint, and also in milk.
Fructose, like glucose, is the simplest sugar structure. Fructose has a very sweet taste, but fructose is not a good energy producer like glucose. Because, the second metabolic pathway of sugar is different. Fructose will not flow into the bloodstream but towards the liver and processed in it.
Safe, fructose directly will not make your baby's blood sugar surge, but indeed sugar is not a good energy producer.
While sucrose is a type of artificial sugar containing glucose and fructose. This means, sucrose after being broken down in the body can produce energy from its glucose level.
Because sucrose contains glucose, sucrose can make blood sugar levels soar and risk causing children to be overweight or obese.
So, you need to be smart in choosing children's drinks and foods that contain sugar. Even though your baby's body needs sugar as energy, the sugar in your baby's body should not be excessive.
What are the benefits of reducing sugar intake for children
1. Prevent tooth decay in children
When babies or children are exposed to very frequent and long periods of sugar exposure, from their drinks, from their milk, their food, or their snacks, they have a very high risk of tooth decay.
When sugar stays in the child's mouth for more than 20 minutes, the bacteria use sugar as their food to produce acid. This acid then attacks the teeth and damages the condition of the teeth, such as cavities or over time there will be tooth decay in the child.
Therefore, sugar consumption in children must be limited to maintaining healthy teeth.
2. Prevent obesity in children
Excess sugar in children not only causes problems in the oral cavity, but also in the child's weight. Children who are over sugar have a greater risk of obesity. Sugar does not have to be in the form of sugar, sugar is found in various foods such as cakes, cookies and drinks.
What's more sugar from drinks that don't feel filling, this is the biggest contributor to childhood obesity. Because, drinks that contain high sugar are not filling and very easy to consume, just swallowed. This is what makes children not aware of the excess sugar from the sweet drink.
Therefore, sweet drinks like milk which should be good for children's health can be dangerous if they contain high sugar.
Reported on the WHO page, obese children are ironically going to have a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, asthma and other respiratory problems, liver disorders and sleep disorders. Therefore it is very important to limit children's sugar intake to prevent these things from happening.
3. Prevent sugar addiction
Reported on the Verywell page, eating or drinking too much sugar actually increases a person's risk of experiencing sugar addiction or sugar addiction. This addiction makes the body always want to eat more foods that contain sugar.
Sugar has been shown to have this effect based on several experimental studies that have been conducted. Even newborns can experience this sugar addiction. So, regulate sugar intake since these children are very important.
Children who experience sugar addiction have symptoms of tremor, feel very lethargic than usual, sometimes it will become very active, mood swings.
This sugar addiction over time can also lead to obesity and tooth decay.