While politicians debate national approaches to reducing sugar intake and obesity (Report, 24 October), new parents could take personal measures themselves – right now.
Diluted fruit juice is the routine afternoon snack of many babies almost from birth. It may be good stuff: pure juice; no nasty preservatives: lots of vitamin C that isn’t needed; and no added sugar. But fruit juice doesn’t need sugar added to make it sweet, it is sweet. That’s why babies like it better than plain water and it’s because they prefer it that it becomes habitual. A tiny afternoon drink soon becomes an anytime and all-the-time drink that grows with the baby.
Once babies and toddlers come to expect sweet drinks, they usually reject water with scorn and fury. That’s not good for them in the present or the future. With their bellies full of sweet stuff they’ll want less milk or solid food, so overall nutrition as well as new teeth are at risk. And as they get older and drink more and more fruit-flavoured stuff those drinks become a main source of empty calories and unwanted pounds.
It doesn’t have to happen. If babies who want a non-milk drink are always given plain water that’s what they will expect and what they expect is what they will prefer, even insist upon, probably for at least two or three years. If parents put the misleading health (and commercial) arguments for baby juices out of their heads, sticking to water from the beginning will be easy, money-saving and a really important and immediate contribution to preventing early caries and obesity.
Penelope Leach
Lewes, East Sussex
• At the risk of sounding like a killjoy, am I alone in musing on the irony of being expected to have a supply of sweets to hand to children who randomly knock on my door on 31 October? In the light of obesity problems and the drive to tax sugar, maybe a slice of carrot or celery would be a healthier option – or would that result in egg dripping down my front door as it was when I arrived home late last night?
Lindsey Mundy
Ludlow, Shropshire
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
