Many parents underestimate the high sugar content of popular foods

Many parents do not know what foods and drinks contain how much sugar

According to health experts, more and more obese people are living in Germany. Many children and adolescents are far too fat. This is not particularly surprising when you consider that many child snacks contain a lot of sugar. But even supposedly healthy foods often contain a lot of the sweetener. Parents often misjudge the sugar content in foods.

High sugar consumption endangers the health

Obesity in children has increased dramatically in recent years. Above all, this is due to much too much sugar consumption. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a maximum of 50 grams of free sugar a day. On average, the Germans absorb almost twice the amount. This also has to do with the hidden sugar in food. Although parents who usually make nutritional choices for their offspring tend to worry about how many sweets are allowed for children, many of them underestimate the sugar content of traditional foods, a recent study shows.

Many parents underestimate the sugar content of popular foods such as yogurt. This underestimation is associated with a twice as high risk of overweight for the children. (Picture: niradj / fotolia.com)

Incorrect assessment is associated with an increased risk of overweight

A recent study in the journal International Journal of Obesity by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (MPIB) and the University of Mannheim shows that most parents underestimate the sugar content of popular foods massively.

This underestimation is associated with a twice as high risk of overweight for the children.

To come to this conclusion, Mattea Dallacker and Ralph Hertwig from the MPIB and Jutta Mata from the University of Mannheim examined how well parents can estimate the sugar content of various foods and beverages.

The results were linked to the body mass index (BMI) of children. In total, 305 parent-child couples participated in the study, the children were between six and twelve years old.

Sugar content of common foods

As the MPIB reported in a communication, the parents completed computer sugar testing on which they were shown pictures of six common foods and drinks: orange juice, coke, pizza, yogurt, granola bars and ketchup.

The task was to estimate the sugar content of each food in sugar cubes. It was found that 74 percent of parents underestimated the sugar content of most foods and drinks, in some cases significantly.

For example, with yoghurt, even 92 percent underestimated the sugar content - and that on average by seven cubes. This corresponds to 60 percent of the total sugar quantity of the fruit yoghurt.

"These results suggest that an easily accessible and practical knowledge of sugar content, such as nutrition labeling, can improve parents' intuition about sugar. This could help to reduce the sugar intake in children and thus be a preventive measure against obesity, "write the study authors.

Understandable labels could help

"Parents often suspect significantly less sugar in food than is actually contained. This is a potential risk factor for obesity in children, "said lead author Mattea Dallacker, research associate in MPIB's Adaptive Rationality research area.

"So the parents who underestimated the sugar content also had obese children more often."

Parents are particularly worried about the foods and beverages that are generally considered healthy, such as yogurt or orange juice (84 percent). Only with muesli bars and ketchup did more parents overestimate the actual sugar content.

"It is important for parents, as dieticians, to know about the sugar content of foods and beverages," said Ralph Hertwig, director of the Adaptive Rationality Research Unit at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

"This is the only way they can regulate childish sugar intake and provide a healthy diet," says the expert.

"Transparent and easy-to-understand labels could help parents to accurately assess sugar levels without much effort. This could be done, for example, by a traffic light system - which is certainly not yet perfect - or the keyhole seal known from Scandinavia, which features products with less fat, sugar and salt, "said Hertwig. (Ad)