In Europe only the diet of twenty out of a hundred children complies with WHO guidelines, especially when it comes to intake of simple sugars.
This was a key finding emerging from the IDEFICS (Identification and Prevention of Dietary and Lifestyle-Induced Health Effects in Children and Infants) study, which began in September 2006 and ended in February 2012. Its goal was to collect data to carry out an international assessment of the problem of childhood obesity.
The study considered the consumption of simple sugars in the diet of 16,228 children in the age group 2-9 years in eight European countries, including Italy. 20% of children considered were overweight or obese.
The term “simple sugars” or “free sugars” on the label means both glucose, fructose and sucrose added to a processed food at the time of production, during cooking or before consumption, and the sugars naturally present in the food.
WHO suggests that simple sugars should not constitute more than 10% of the daily calorie intake.
Foods belonging to different groups have been regarded as sources of simple sugars:
- plants;
- cereals and bakery products;
- sugary beverages;
- coffee,
- teas and herbal teas;
- milk and dairy products in general;
- fruit juices;
- sweets, chocolate snacks and desserts;
- potatoes;
- nuts and oilseeds;
- ready-made seasonings and sauces (mayonnaise, ketchup, and so on.);
- ready-made soups and broths.
The analyses showed that:
-
Fruit juices and sugary beverages provide the highest proportion of free sugars. This is not so surprising considering a 500ml bottle of tea of the most famous brands contains about 50g of sugar – roughly the equivalent of about ten sugar cubes.
-
Milk and derivatives come next after soft drinks. In addition to sugars occurring naturally in these products, it is not uncommon for them to be added, for example, to yoghurts, especially flavoured ones. By reading the nutritional labels, you can see how some yoghurts labelled as ‘light’ contain more than 10g of sugar (almost two and a half 5g cubes of sugar). Fat content in what is branded as ‘light’ yoghurts should be reduced and ideally replaced by proteins, however, more often than not they are replaced by sugar.
-
Third on the list are confectionery and sweets.
On average, European children consume about 18% of daily calories in the form of simple sugars. Unlike German children — who are the ones who misuse them the most (27.2%) — Italians are among the most virtuous (13.3%), although they are still above the limit recommended by the WHO.
Italy is, however, one of the countries with the highest rate of overweight or childhood obesity.
As reported by a 2019 WHO study on more than 600,000 children from 21 countries of the European community (Prevalence of Severe Obesity Among Primary School Children in 21 European Countries), in Italy about one in two children is overweight, while one out of five is clinically obese, with a higher incidence among males than females.
The IDEFICS study confirms that, although there are considerable differences, European children aged between two and nine generally consume far higher amounts of free sugars than recommended by WHO.
These figures paint a rather disturbing picture in that it is almost the norm that foods targeted at young children are enriched with simple sugars to make them far more attractive to them.
Although simple sugars added to foods are accused of being one of the leading causes of obesity and other chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, the differences detected between different countries must be taken into account in designing specific educational interventions directed not only at the population but also to the food industry.
Sources and insights:
http://www.ideficsstudy.eu/home.html
https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/500436