A spoonful of sugar: Global diets are STILL getting sweeter despite health trends

Sugary diets are still on the increase

LOOKING after yourself has never been trendier, so why is our diet STILL all about the sugar?

 

Despite warnings, a report published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal highlights that the global diet is getting sweeter. 

Previous research has shown that consuming foods and beverages with added calorie filled sweeteners is linked to a whole host of ills - from increased risk of weight gain and heart disease to diabetes and stroke. 

 

Experts warn of health dangers of eating too much sugar

In the US, a massive 68 per cent of packaged foods and beverages in the USA contain calorific sweeteners, 74 per cent contain both caloric and low-calorie sweeteners and a mere five per cent are made with solely low-calorie sweeteners. 

The added sugar comes from hundreds of different versions of sugar, all of which have the same equal health effect, says the paper’s author Professor Popkin.

 

Although the focus was on America, he predicts that the rest of the world will follow suit with the amount of sugar in their food and drinks.

The authors also discovered that sales of sugar-sweetened beverages around the world are increasing in terms of calories sold per day and volume sold per person.

 

Experts suggest a sugar tax is helpful

While the latest data showed that, on average, people are consuming more sugary drinks and foods, consumption has been decreasing in countries with taxes on such products, such as Mexico, Finland, Hungary and France.

The researchers advise that sugar taxes, marketing controls and front-of-pack labelling are all important to reduce the public consumption of these sweet treats.