Читать книгу They Are What You Feed Them: How Food Can Improve Your Child’s Behaviour, Mood and Learning - Dr Richardson Alex - Страница 22

A survey for Food Magazine in 2004 revealed that a single drink of Ribena or Lucozade could give your child more than a whole day’s recommended sugar intake.

 500ml bottle Ribena: 70g sugar (equivalent to at least 15 teaspoons)

 380ml bottle Lucozade Energy: 64g sugar

 330ml bottle Coca-Cola: 25g sugar

That means a bottle of the soft stuff can give your child the same ‘sugar hit’ as one to four packets of sweets. In some cases, the sweetener may be in the form of high-fructose corn syrup (which is cheaper to produce than sugar).

‘No added sugar’ varieties just put in artificial sweeteners instead, which some good evidence shows may carry different kinds of risks.

Regular consumption of fizzy, sweet drinks can lead to a decline in body levels of important minerals

In the news, we hear that 40 per cent of patients in our hospitals are suffering from malnutrition—which can add serious complications to their treatment and care, and significantly slow their recovery.⁵ In most cases it probably contributed to their illness too—but at least the links between nutrition and physical health are starting to be acknowledged by our health services. (They have long been recognized by top performers in physical sports!) What we need now is a similar acceptance that food and diet also affect mental health and performance. It really should be ‘barn door’ obvious. The brain is part of the body—and has nutrient and energy requirements of its own. But remarkably little systematic effort has so far been devoted to finding out what those requirements really are—and just how our mood, behaviour and learning really can be affected when these needs are not properly met.

Still, it’s encouraging to see that consumers are beginning to wise up to some of what’s been going on, and to change their shopping and eating habits as a result. For the sake of your children, I do hope you are one of them—and I hope this book will give you some of the help you’ll need.