Bitter SWEET
The link between sugar and tooth decay is old news but still makes a good headline. Despite high-tech toothpastes and brushes, NHS surgeons performed record numbers of tooth extractions on children in 2016-17. Dental experts said it should be a wake-up call to the effects of sugar on children’s teeth (it feeds the bacteria in our mouths, which produce acids that dissolve tooth enamel).
But, much more than this, sugar’s role in other health issues is also coming into focus. Consuming more sugar than we need leads to weight gain. Public Health England says, ‘Ideally, no more than five percent of the energy we consume should come from free sugars.’ It reports that, ‘Currently, children and adults across the UK are consuming two to three times that amount.’
Nearly 23 percent of reception age children in England are obese or overweight. Fast-forward to adulthood, and around six in ten adults in England are overweight or obese by body mass index. And
