Children's sugar intake equals five doughnuts a day, campaigners say

Children and young people are consuming the equivalent of 20 chocolate chip biscuits a day in sugar, according to anti-obesity campaigners.

The calculations by the Obesity Health Alliance have led to renewed calls for food and soft drinks manufacturers to make their products healthier to cut the number of dangerously overweight children. They want urgent action to reduce the amount of “hidden” sugar in many common foodstuffs.

“Most parents would never hand over 20 chocolate biscuits a day to their children, but with so much hidden sugar in our food and drink it can often be hard to know just how much children are consuming,” said Dr Modi Mwatsama, a spokesman for the alliance.

It is urging food firms to replicate the reduction in the amount of salt they put into their products in the 2000s.

Children and young people aged between 11 and 18 typically have an intake of 73.2 grams of sugar a day, far in excess of the 30g – or seven teaspoons – maximum recommended in official health advice, according to the OHA’s estimates. Those 73.2g are the equivalent of 20 chocolate chip or custard cream biscuits, 14.6 jelly babies, 5.4 slices of Victoria sponge cake or 4.8 jam-filled doughnuts.

The alliance’s figures are based on its analysis of Public Health England and the Food Standards Agency’s most recent national diet and nutrition survey, an annual study of what a representative sample of the population is eating and drinking, published last September.

It also found that four- to 10-year-olds are consuming 53.5g of sugar a day, while the figure among 19- to 64-year-olds is 59.9g daily.

Dr Alison Tedstone, Public Health England’s chief nutritionist, said that while some food manufacturers have pledged to cut the amount of sugar in their products, certain kinds of retailers - including coffee chains – need to follow suit.

“Some big industry players have taken positive early steps, but it’s the big coffee shops, pubs and restaurants we need to do the same,” she said.

Producers including Tesco, Waitrose, Nestlé, Lucozade, Ribena and Kellogg’s have announced plans to reduce their use of sugar as part of a reformulation drive ahead of the government’s sugar tax coming into force in 2018. However, many other firms have made no such commitment and may be hit by the tax.

PHE wants all food manufacturers and outlets to strip 20% of all sugar out of a wide range of products by 2020. It plans to issue a report sometime next month setting out in detail for the first time what types of foods contribute the most to people’s sugar intake and where they buy and consume them.

Sarah Toule, head of health information at World Cancer Research Fund, said that overweight or obese children are much more likely to be dangerously overweight in adulthood and thus increase their risk of developing 11 forms of cancer.