The increasing consumption of sweetened drinks such as soda, juice, sport drinks, has posed a threat to public health. A number of diseases such as, diabetes, obesity, hypoglycemia and dental problems, have been associated with high intake of sugars. These sweet drinks contain a lot of calories with little or no nutritional benefit. Sugar also reduces immunity, interferes normal metabolism, and results in various harmful responses to your body. Given the fact that modern meals are rich in sugar, parents should watch sugar intake of their children. A healthy start is a good start for your child.
Although fruit juice is often given to young children as a healthy food, it is not as healthy as one would think. A 12-ounce of orange juice contains 180 calories which is equivalent of eating 3 chocolate cookies. Juice may contain vitamins but the major component is "high calories". The benefit is less than the harm for children who eat plenty of sugar or have weight problems. Young children feel full quickly if they drink a lot of juice and decrease the amount of food they eat. For adults or older children, juice adds excess calories and causes weight gain.
Evidently, Sodas and other sweetened drinks, which are full of sugar, are worse than juice. Many sodas also contain caffeine; they are no good to your children. So if we do the math and add up all the calories from sweet drinks, the number is easily over 360 calories if a child drinks more than 2 serves of sweet drinks per day.
Children are born with sweet tooth, parents should not take away their pleasure completely. One child can only be a child once and we need to let child have some fun for being a child. A lot of parents want to feed children all natural food. It is good only if the amount of sugar in daily diet is regulated. Children should drink plenty of water, nonfat milk and other beverages with little sugar, salt, or calories. I meant replacement of some juice with no calories such as sparkling water, diet sodas. This suggestion may sound outrageous to many parents; however, with consideration of all the health risk and benefits, it is a sensible thing to do.
There is no solid evidence suggesting an association of artificial sweeteners with cancer in humans. In an early study of laboratory animal suggested that cyclamate in combination with saccharin (e.g. Sweet'N Low) can cause bladder cancer in rats. However, subsequent studies have not produced the same results. In addition, human epidemiology studies have shown no association of saccharin with bladder cancer. The use of cyclamate is banned by FDA currently; the FDA's concerns about cyclamate are not cancer related.
The other popular artificial sweetener, aspartame (e.g. NutraSweet and Equal) was approved by FDA after numerous carcinogenicity studies which showed no adverse effects of aspartame in laboratory animals. The risk of aspartame to brain and central nervous system has been arisen, but no solid human epidemiology data support the risk. An animal study in which equivalent to drinking 8 to 2083 cans of diet soda was fed to laboratory rats and the rats had high incidences of lymphomas and leukemias in a dose-independent manner. A subsequent study showed no association of aspartame with development of brain cancer, lymphoma or leukemia. Aspartame warning has been appeared in many websites. The validation of risk may need to be assessed carefully for public health reason.
Sucralose (e.g. Splenda), acesulfame potassium (e.g. Sweet one, Sunett) and Neotame are general sweeteners approved by the FDA after more than 100 safety studies. No cancer risk was found in these 100 plus experiments.
Artificial sweetener studies can be found in National cancer institute .
Juice does more harmful than good if excess amount is consumed. Generally, I will not categorize diet soda or diet drink as a healthy food, but with risk factors of diabetes and obesity in mind, ironically, diet soda and drink become healthy alternatives. Diabetes and Obesity pose immediate threats to our children and public health, a simple prevention is reduction of sugar consumption.
Artificial sweeteners in Mediciine Net
Diabetes statistics (American diabetes Association)
- In 2007, a total of 23.6 million children and adults in the US have diabetes (7.8% of the population)
- One of every 400-600 children and adolescents has type 1 diabetes.
Obesity statistics
- 60 million Americans are overweight.
- Almost 20% of children in America are overweight.
Obesity statistics: Healthy American org
Obesity in the US (Wikipedia)
Child Obesity statistics (obesity.ygoy.com)
