Choose Nutritious Meals and Desserts Because Too Much Sweets and Sugar Is Unhealthy for Children

Children require various nutrients daily to grow strong, healthy bodies. For this reason, day-care centres and parents need to select nutritious meals and desserts to serve to children since an excess of sweets and sugar will negatively affect their overall health and well-being. Meals should include lean protein, fresh green and other vegetables, whole grain choices, low-fat dairy or appropriate substitute, fresh fruit and healthy fats such as olive oil. Replace sugar-laden desserts and treats with fresh fruit to lower a child’s sugar intake. Limit cookies and cakes to only special occasions to prevent the following possible consequences.

1. Children Learn Poor Eating Habits

When adults allow children to consume an excess of sweets and sugar, the children learn poor eating habits. They will prefer the flavour of sweets and sugar to healthier options. Instead of eating nutritious meals easily, they will fill up on the cakes, cookies and other treats that are high in sugar or even artificial sweeteners. Research has shown that both can cause health issues when people overdo eating them.

2. Cavities

Sugary drinks and foods can lead to tooth decay in some cases. The natural sugar content of whole fruits will not cause this issue, but sodas, fruit juice and sticky candy have a higher concentration of sugar than whole fruits do, and this will break down the tooth enamel to cause the teeth to decay.

3. Weight Gain

When the body consumes sugar and other sweets, it does not burn up glycogen stores for energy. Instead, it utilises sugar and sweets for energy first. Along with this fact, both are high in calories. All this can lead to an unhealthy weight gain. Children who are overweight can suffer from a variety of problems from high blood pressure to a risk of heart problems.

4. Risk of Diabetes

Research proves that a high consumption of sugar leads to a risk of contracting diabetes. Diabetes happens when there is an excess of glucose in the bloodstream. When this occurs, the pancreas makes insufficient insulin and as a result, the glucose accumulates in the blood instead of the body processing it correctly. While type-1 diabetes is a rare form of this disease and mainly occurs in young adults and children, over 917,000 Australians suffer from type-2 diabetes at present. Adults can contract type-2 diabetes as they age, but this form of the disease also occurs in children and young people who live unhealthy lifestyles.

To avoid these health conditions with children, parents and day-care centres should feed the kids only nutritious meals and desserts to help them avoid consuming an excess of sweets and sugar. Our company, Hearty Health, specialises in child-care catering to ensure that children eat healthy, nutritious foods each day.