*Flashback Friday*
*This post originally appeared on The PediaBlog on November 18, 2020.
Limiting SSB
Yesterday we looked at research indicating babies who are breastfed exclusively for the first six months of life have better dental health than those who aren’t. That benefit is lost, however, when children don’t keep up with healthy dental habits like brushing twice a day with fluoride toothpaste, flossing regularly, and avoiding sweet and sticky foods and sugar-sweetened beverages.
After years of steady increases, it now appears that heavy consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is declining in both children and adults. That’s good news considering what we learned last year about excessive consumption of added dietary sugar:
In a joint policy statement with the American Heart Association published earlier this year, the American Academy of Pediatrics bluntly described the health consequences for children who drink sugar-sweetened beverages excessively:
Excess consumption of added sugars, especially from sugary drinks, contributes to the high prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity, especially among children and adolescents who are socioeconomically vulnerable. It also increases the risk for dental decay, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes mellitus, fatty liver disease, and all-cause mortality.
Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages shouldn’t be confused with heavy consumption, which researchers define as drinking 40 ounces-or-more-a-day of sodas, fruit beverages, energy drinks, and other products that use sugar as a sweetener. Until recently, 10.9% of children in the United States and 12.7% of adults were heavy consumers of sugar-sweetened beverages. Janel Miller reports on new research indicating those numbers are now falling in children representing most ethnic and socioeconomic groups:
The researchers found that among all children, the percentage of heavy sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumers significantly declined, from 10.9% to 3.3% [… ] The percentage also dropped among non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic Blacks, Mexican-Americans and non-Mexican Hispanics. Although the percentages of children of other races and ethnicities also reduced their SSB intake, the rates were not statistically significant.
It’s not all that surprising that boys between the ages of 12-19 continue to be the heaviest drinkers of sugar-sweetened beverages. While their consumption goes down, so too goes adults’, with one important exception:
Among adults in general, the researchers found that the percentage of heavy SSB consumers dropped from 12.7% to 9.1%. Among adults aged 20 to 39 years, the percentage decreased from 20.8% to 9.9%. However, the percentage of heavy SSB consumers increased significantly among those aged 60 years and older — from 1.8% to 4%.
The study’s author offers a couple of reasons for her findings:
Vercammen told Healio Primary Care that the findings for children and adults overall “are promising because we know that excessive SSB consumption is related to poor health outcomes like weight gain, diabetes and dental caries.”
She said the decrease in heavy SSB consumption is likely due to the enforcement of beverage taxes and ordinances that require restaurants to offer only healthy beverages to children instead of SSBs with their meals.
Vercammen added that “physicians can encourage their patients to limit consumption of SSBs and instead, drink healthier beverages like water.”
We did exactly that one year ago!
Most pediatricians agree that giving children the choice of water, milk, or “nothing” is the best strategy. Nothing is an appropriate choice because when kids are really thirsty, they will drink anything. After the first birthday, dropping milk as a choice is perfectly appropriate because by then, children don’t need to drink milk anymore. And they certainly don’t need to be served fruit juices and sugar-sweetened beverages.
source http://www.thepediablog.com/2022/11/18/flashback-friday-233/
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