Recommended Daily Sugar Intake for Toddlers
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Updated on Sep 17, 2012
My 26 month old son is not a great fan of sweets/pastries/other sweet treats,although he thoroughly enjoys eating chocolates. He does not even like sugar added to milk. Please let me know what should be the ideal/recommended sugar intake for toddlers per day for good health. Thanks, Sreelakshmi
| Sep 18, 2012
No reason to worry Sreelakshmi! The table sugar as we know it, has little nutritional value. It mostly contains empty calories. If your son isn't fond of the sugary taste, he isn't missing out on much in terms of nutrition. However, he should be getting natural sugar from varied sources as 60-70% of his daily diet. Natural sugar is present in milk & other dairy products (lactose), fruits (glucose & fructose), and in the form of starchy vegetables (potato/sweet potato/carrot/pumpkin/peas etc). So, if your baby is eating fruits, vegetables, consuming milk & milk products on a daily basis, you need to take it easy.
| Sep 18, 2012
hey sreelakshmi, 4-5 tsp of table sugar makes 150 calories and you can find out the amount of calories that your son needs in a day by calculating as follows: A toddler needs about 40 calories/ per inch of his height. By doing this you will know exactly how much calories are being consumed by your child from which components. Also processed / packed foods have added sugar (you can read the content label at the back of each packaged product) so it is best to stick to home cooked foods and complex carbohydrates which take longer to break into sugar and hence give energy for a longer duration of time.
| Sep 25, 2012
My daughter of 5 years hated sweets earlier but of late has taken to certain sweets like rasmalai and kaaju barfi, so you never know when tastes change. I suppose you should be happy that your child does not like sugary snacks. Best way to keep them away from childhood obesity. Just make sure he has enough of the "good stuff". :)
