Is sugar killing our grandkids?

Peasblossom I so agree, I have had to virtually stop drinking any soft drink because I can smell the sweetener the moment I take the lid off, and the taste is vile.

This might seem a good thing, but I do not drink many soft drinks, but, now, when I do fancy one, the choice is down to 2; bottled water, fizzy or flat .

Like others, born in wartime, there were no snacks between meals and I have consciously made sure it was a habit I never got into. However, I am lucky, even as a child, I did not have a very sweet tooth and my disinclination to eat sweet things has increased with time. I raely have a dessert when out, preferring a starter every time. I can visit an NT cafe and drink tea, yet not eat cake, even others in the party do. No sacrifice, I just don't want it.

Golden syrup sandwiches.........

Farmor - bread sprinkled with sugar - those were the days!

I agree with Farmoor we had sugar in tea and puddings but what we didn’t have was snacks between meals or Processed foods.
None of our family were overweight or went on to have Diabetes, neither did our own children.
So, everything in moderation and don’t buy junk or processed foods.

I echo lemongrove in repeating that sugar does NOT cause diabetes. It rots the teeth and in large amounts it provides so many calories that people get obese but still suffer from malnutrition from not getting enough of other foods..

When I was a child, my grandmother would say whenever she saw me tucking in to a lovely sweet pudding "You'll get diabetes if you eat that!" but she also believed that tuberculosis was an inherited condition, due to "bad blood", whatever that was.

I thought that it was known now by everyone how diabetes is caused by the pancreas failing to automatically make then right amount of insulin to adjust normally to the amount of sugar it had to deal with.

That tiny baby with insulin must have been born with a failing pancreas.

Good post Farmor?

Am just popping in to say that too much sugar is undoubtedly bad for you, for both teeth and health, but it does not cause diabetes type 1 in either children or adults.
The pancreas cannot make enough insulin and it’s connected to the immune system not working properly.That’s the quick explanation.Children having too many sugary things won’t cause it.

No, those that allows the kids to have the sugar are killing them!

We're all living ourselves to death.

The trouble is a little information is a dangerous thing.
Sensible moderation (no added sugar or sugary drinks before 1y or even later), and a common sense approach to diet, and all should be well.

The trouble with reducing sugar has been those awful sugar substitutes that get used instead. Ugh! And they have health implications too. They can cause really bad allergies.

I agree, Peasblossom
And aspartame has been proved to be a factor in causing obesity.
Dreadful stuff should be banned.

I agree that people eat too much sugar and a lot is hidden in processed food. However, humans naturally have a sweet tooth and once sugar became easily available, we’ve eaten it!

When I was a child, most people took at least 2 teaspoons of sugar in a cup (not mug) of tea and lots of tea was drunk. Babies were given sweetened tea in bottles and soothers dipped in honey. Dinner was always followed by pudding - dishes like golden syrup pudding and treacle tart which I would now regard not very nutritious. Jam sandwiches were common and some children were given bread sprinkled with sugar.

I’m not suggesting this was a good diet, just that sugar isn’t a new problem. What is more recent is obesity, caused by too wide availability of cheap calories- often savoury things like chips and pizza. And lack of exercise. When you see photos of children and young people in 50s and 60s they look very skinny, despite their sugary diet.

Its the added sugars what health experts are worried about. That's the kind put in by manufacturers or by you at home. It's NOT the natural kind found in fruit and dairy. (Ever noticed that plain yogurt or milk still has sugar? That's natural.) Unfortunately, the nutrition facts label doesn't distinguish between added and natural (yet!) but you can still use this label-reading trick: Every 4 grams of sugar = 1 teaspoon. So candy with 8 grams of sugar per serving has the equivalent of two teaspoons of sugar.

No-one actually needs sugar (I mean the white stuff, not natural sugars) and it messes with the body. It doesn't help that sugary things are delicious though.

Some mothers stupidly add sugar to formula milk. Nobody needs extra sugar in their diet yet companies add it to most processed food due to its cheapness.

How can a two month old baby have sugar induced diabetes? Does it come out in breast milk if the mother eats loads of sugar?

The trouble with reducing sugar has been those awful sugar substitutes that get used instead. Ugh! And they have health implications too. They can cause really bad allergies.

I don’t disagree in principle. I’d like to see a model of how it would work in practice.