Childhood Obesity: Every Day is Halloween

Dr. Scott Olson ND, the author of a new book, Sugarettes, suggests that parents need to pay attention to the amount of sugar that their children are eating every day, and not just on Halloween.

The major source of sugar in children's diet is no surprise: soda and fruit juice. A new study in the journal, Pediatrics, reports that children are consuming betwee
10 and 15 percent of their total calories from fruit juice or soda. Youths, aged six to eighteen, drink an average of 30 oz of soda or fruit juice every day, while children between the ages of two and five are typically drinking 15.5 oz of sugary drinks a day.

When soda and fruit juice consumption are added to all the other sugars in a child's diet, they typically consume betwee
1/4 and 1/2 pound of sugar every day - adding up to a staggering 100 to 150 pounds of sugar every year.

"Sugar is so enticing," says Dr. Scott in his book Sugarettes, "we often don't appreciate just how powerful of an addiction sugar is and how much harm comes from that addiction."

While the medical community is all but silent on the harm that results from a high amount of sugar in children's diets, new research is beginning to reveal links between large amounts of sugar consumption and obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

Research suggests that as high as 65 percent of adults and 20 percent of children in developed countries are now considered overweight. Shockingly, over one-half of overweight children also have at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease, including hypertension, hyperlipidemia, or insulin resistance.

According to the World Health Organization, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease account for somewhere betwee
15 and 30 million deaths a year worldwide. Avoiding sugar would be a boon to the health of both children and adults and save millions of dollars worth of medical care.