How much sugar does your child consume daily? 

  • By Lisa Soesbe
  • 04 May, 2018

An eye opening look and challenge for parents

When I am out in public with my children, I often hear comments from people like, "Your children are so well behaved!", "Your kids are so good!", etc. Is it because I am the perfect mother? Heck no! Far from it! However, if there is one thing I pay attention to, it is how much added sugar my children consume on a daily basis. Why is this important? There are many reasons.  Though it is a nice side effect that my children are well behaved, my number one reason is that I know that too much added sugar is harmful to their health .   As spelled out in the article I have linked by Dr. Sears, sugar has a direct effect on immunity and it is one of the main reasons that many kids today are sick all of the time.  My children used to get sick constantly. I would say at least once per month for awhile. This is not normal. After reviewing what I was feeding them, I slowly cut out most, if not all processed foods from their diet. Over time, my kids got sick less and less.  I have been feeding them whole foods ever since.  

But how much is too much added sugar? I am going to point you to a good resource. Visit this website called Sugar Science. This site was started by a group of scientists have taken all of the information about sugar on their website directly from medical journals. They make the information readily available to the public to help us make healthy choices. Over 8,000 scientific papers have been written about sugar and its detriment to our health.  According to the American Heart Association (AHA), men should consume no more than 9 teaspoons (38 grams) of added sugar per day, and women should consume no more than 6 teaspoons (25 grams) per day. The AHA limits for children vary depending on their age and caloric needs, however the range for children is between 3-6 teaspoons (12 - 25 grams) per day.

To put this in perspective, just one small lollipop contains about 8 grams of sugar. If your child is consuming just one lollipop, that is more than half of their daily allowance of added sugar. If you child drinks one Gatorade fruit punch, for instance, they have met the maximum amount of added sugar with just that one drink. Not to mention all of the hidden sugars that you may not be aware of. This all adds up!  

This is why we really need to pay close attention, especially when it comes to our children and future generations. It is estimated that 1 in 3 adults will have diabetes in the year 2050.  Guess what? Our children will be adults in 2050.  Let's work together to try and change that.  
Have you ever stopped to think about just how much sugar your children are consuming every single day?  I want to challenge you to keep track of this for just one week.  To help you with this I am going to provide you with a list of the 61 different names for sugar that you will find in packaged foods.  Take a look at some of the products you buy and look to see how many times any of these names are listed.  These are all sugar! 

  1. Agave nectar
  2. Barbados sugar
  3. Barley malt
  4. Barley malt syrup
  5. Beet sugar
  6. Brown sugar
  7. Buttered syrup
  8. Cane juice
  9. Cane juice crystals
  10. Cane sugar
  11. Caramel
  12. Carob syrup
  13. Castor sugar
  14. Coconut palm sugar
  15. Coconut sugar
  16. Confectioner's sugar
  17. Corn sweetener
  18. Corn syrup
  19. Corn syrup solids
  20. Date sugar
  21. Dehydrated cane juice
  22. Demerara sugar
  23. Dextrin
  24. Dextrose
  25. Evaporated cane juice
  26. Free-flowing brown sugars
  27. Fructose
  28. Fruit juice
  29. Fruit juice concentrate
  30. Glucose
  31. Glucose solids
  32. Golden sugar
  33. Golden syrup
  34. Grape sugar
  35. HFCS (High-Fructose Corn Syrup)
  36. Honey
  37. Icing sugar
  38. Invert sugar
  39. Malt syrup
  40. Maltodextrin
  41. Maltol
  42. Maltose
  43. Mannose
  44. Maple syrup
  45. Molasses
  46. Muscovado
  47. Palm sugar
  48. Panocha
  49. Powdered sugar
  50. Raw sugar
  51. Refiner's syrup
  52. Rice syrup
  53. Saccharose
  54. Sorghum Syrup
  55. Sucrose
  56. Sugar (granulated)
  57. Sweet Sorghum
  58. Syrup
  59. Treacle
  60. Turbinado sugar
  61. Yellow sugar
Added sugar is hiding in foods everywhere that people consider "healthy" such as yogurt and energy bars.  But something you may not think about is the added sugars put in savory foods like bread, pasta sauce, and salad dressings as spelled out in this video:

Does this concern you?  If you decide to take my challenge, I would love to see what you have learned after keeping track for a week.  I hope this will inspire just one person to make some positive changes for their family and their health.  Please share this article with anyone you think would benefit from reading it and challenge them to do the same.  I would love to hear about  your results and if this has encouraged you to make some changes for your family.  
By Lisa Soesbe February 12, 2019
Have you ever bribed your children with sweet treats to get them to do something? Let’s face it, we have all done this before. I’ll be the first one to say I have done this until I realized why I should stop the cycle.

In schools, sporting clubs, and other activities where children are involved, people reward children with candy and other unhealthy snacks. There are even popular lesson plans used in schools that include using M&M’s or Skittles; after the children use the treats for their lesson, they get to eat them as their reward. In American society, this has now become the norm. Go to the barbershop and Johnny gets a treat because he sat so nicely for his haircut. Go to dance class and little Mary gets a piece of candy at the end of class. Go to the bank and Joey gets a lollipop for being a good boy in the bank. It goes on and on. The people that assume that this is okay think, “What’s the big deal?”. This may even be you! I will tell you why this is such a big deal. This is affecting our children both physically and emotionally.  
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I want to share a little hack I discovered a long time ago that I use a lot and pretty much for any online shopping. Have you ever heard of Ebates ? If you are not a member, you are going to want to click on the word Ebates anywhere in this post and sign up today because it will save you lots of money on anything you buy and if you use the referral link, once you sign up and spend $25 or more, you will get $10. If you are not a member you have nothing to lose because it costs you nothing. Do you shop online at all? Chances are your favorite retailer is on Ebates and you will get paid for your normal shopping routine just by signing into Ebates first and then going to your favorite site.   Some examples of stores I am talking about are Target, Walmart, Kohl's and even Amazon!  You simply must check this out.  

Now, let me tell you about how I get cash back for eating healthy. My hack is to log in to Ebates and then shop the sales on Vitacost.com.  Vitacost is an online health and wellness store with over 45,000 products. They also tend to have the best prices on most things.  This gives me great savings because I can buy stuff like organic coconut milk, raw nuts, soy free chocolate chips, nut butters, and gluten-free flours as well as personal care items like deodorant, shampoo and conditioner from Vitacost when it is on sale and if I am buying through Ebates I will normally get at least 3% cash back from Vitacost. They also offer free 2-day shipping on orders over $49 so I usually order stuff that I will need for the month in one order so that I can save on shipping as well.  
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