Danger Of Excess Sugar, IPB Experts Express Simple Ways To Control Children's Sweet Intake

Illustration of children consuming sweet foods. (Freepic)

JAKARTA - Consumption of excessive amounts of sweet foods and drinks has long been associated with various serious diseases.

The additional sugar content in packaged products can increase the risk of obesity, tooth damage, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. Therefore, restrictions on sugar intake need to be a common concern, especially from an early age.

Professor of food and nutrition from the Bogor Agricultural Institute Prof. Dr. Ir. Ali Khomsan MS said that education to improve understanding of the importance of limiting consumption of sweet foods and drinks should start from the family.

According to Prof. Ali, in this case parents can start by telling children the types of food that are better reduced or limited in consumption for the sake of health.

"Restricting sweet foods for children is the responsibility of parents, therefore we educate at the level of the family, it is very important, so that children can determine for themselves which food to buy during snacks and which not," he said as quoted by ANTARA.

He stated that parents can make agreements with their children regarding the arrangement of eating food or sweet drinks. For example, sweet foods can only be consumed on weekends or once every three days.

"So the comfort of children and the comfort of parents in implementing it, when can they consume sweet foods," he said.

Prof. Ali added that limiting sugar consumption is not easy, because packaged sweet foods and drinks are very easy for children to access at affordable prices, especially around the school environment.

Even so, he hopes that children's understanding of the health impacts due to consuming too much sweet foods and drinks can continue to be improved, so that their consumption patterns are more controlled.

Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin previously also said that the government was preparing regulations regarding the inclusion of information on nutritional content, including sugar, salt, and fat on labels for food and beverage products.

Prof. Ali understands that the process of implementing these rules takes time for the industry to adapt.

"The postponement of the label for the next two years is part of industrial preparation to possibly spend the remains of products that have already been produced or have been planned to be produced, so that within two years there have been better preparations for them to put nutritional labels on the packaging of sweet, fatty, and salt food products," he explained.