It appears even children can't escape the new year focus on diet and detoxification, following news that youngsters in England are eating half their recommended daily intake of sugar by the time they've finished breakfast.
According to UK government organization Public Health England (PHE), kids have had more than three times the healthy limit of sugar by the end of each day.
The National Diet and Nutrition Survey suggests kids have on average three sugar cubes worth of sweet stuff before they go to school and cereal, drinks and spreads, despite the majority of parents, 8 out of 10, thinking what they were feeding their children a healthy breakfast.
Great to see @PHE_uk taking a forward step in discussing #sugar intake of children from cereal https://t.co/vj0xNZH5Pi
— Leeds Dental School (@leedsdentistry) November 5, 2016
"Children have far too much sugar, and a lot of it is before their first lesson of the day," Alison Tedston, PHE’s chief nutritionist said.
"It's crucial for children to have a healthy breakfast, but we know the mornings in a busy household can be fraught. That's why we've developed our Be Food Smart app, taking some of the pressure off parents and helping them to choose healthier food and drink options for their children."
The app, developed by PHE is geared towards helping parents monitor and better understand what their children are eating – and more importantly – what they're buying for their children to eat.
The culprits, it seems, for anyone who didn't realize that sugary cereal might have too much sugar in it for children, are sweet cereals, fruit juice and some spreads.
#Sugar hides in many names such as corn syrup, glucose, dextrin, dextrose, galactose, and more. https://t.co/UtM5EloZvg
— Dr. Joseph Mercola (@mercola) December 24, 2016
And if the app doesn’t work, the UK government is expected to introduce a sugar tax in April 2018, much to the disappointment of the drinks industry.
