Essay on Sugar Consumption and It's Implications

I grew up playing the game “Candyland”, and I dreamed of finding the golden ticket and living in Willie Wonka’s factory. I was also given a Gatorade after every sporting event I ever played in so what could be so bad about sugar? Sugar, real and artificial, can be found in almost every product we consume and although sugar is a simple carbohydrate that the body uses for energy, its impact on our body is far from simple. The consumption of sugar has been linked to a host of chronic health problems, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. The addictive nature of sugar is also a significant problem that leads to the other detrimental effects listed above. Sugar has also been useful to help preserve goods, fuel fermentation, balance acidity, and add flavor to other foods. Whether it’s cereal, spaghetti sauce, or yogurt, sugar is everywhere and has become unavoidable in our daily diets. As Americans, we have become accustomed to the sweet addictive taste of sugar, and our dependence on excessive amounts of sugar in its different forms has become alarming to many health experts. In analyzing preference and dependency with sugar, I will trace the addictive nature and major risks sugar has placed on society.

That's more than seven times as much as the average person in the eighteen hundreds! Lots of foods are filled with sugar, even if they are considered healthy. The “healthy” foods would be very bland without artificial flavoring and added sugar, so producers add lots of sugar to make their food taste good. The article How Candy Conquered America discusses this. “And today’s kids and teens are consuming very large quantities of sugar- a staggering 19 teaspoons of added sugar on average,” Lauren Tarshis states. The main reason people can eat so much sugar is that it is so easy to get and hard not to find. Lots of sugar foods are cheap and more desireable than healthy alternatives. Imagine going to the store and buying a snack. Why would you eat some fresh fruit when a candy bar is cheaper and tastes better?

Long ago, sugar was a rarity as it was hard to obtain; however, it is a whole other story today. The World Health Organization recommends " 'consuming less than 10% of calories from added sugar.' " (Hellmich) However," adults in the USA in 2010 consumed about 15% of their daily calories... from sugar" (Hellmich) At this level of consumption, a significant part of the average Americans' diet composes of sugar-rich substances. "Major sources of added sugars... are sugar-sweetened beverages, desserts, fruit drinks, dairy desserts (ice cream) and candy." (Hellmich) For the usual breakfast, breakfast is washed down with a cup of fruit juice or orange juice. This cup already contains few to several teaspoons of sugar. It is quite difficult to find processed foods that does not contain

In the article from USA Today, “Eating Too Much Added Sugars May Be Killing You,” Nanci Hellmich claims added sugars in soda, candy, and many more sweets may be killing you. Hellmich says that added sugar can lead to an increased risk of death caused by heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and stroke. She supports her claim by referring to a survey recorded by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey done on 31,000 people, then reflecting on the dietary habits of citizens based on interviews, and finally providing the evidence that most adults consume 10% of their daily calories from added sugar which is very unhealthy and hazardous for people’s health. Hellmich writes it in an informative tone for the public

Sugar can turn your liver into scar tissue if you have too much. Sugar can also lead to obesity. You can put yourself at risk of a heart disease, diabetes and mood swings and so much more. Dr. Robert Lusting (2014) claims sugar is ''poison'' for the human body. California students eat 160 fewer calories a day than other students in other states because we have labels on fast food menus (Brownnell, 2011). "The California Senate recently passed a bill designed to do just that, and it may soon become a law (Lloyd, 2014, p. 18). Americans deserve the right to know what can make them

There are plenty of reasons and research studies that show how destructive sugar can be for your health if not managed properly, “and unfortunately our standard American Diet is anything but balanced.”(Konie 1) Americans don’t manage their sugar levels, let alone manage their sugar intake. The exponential growth of obesity in underway and the main cause. Sugar. Many people don’t understand this but sugar is perfectly fine as long as you can control it, many also don’t realize just, “how dangerous the extremes can be.”(Konie 1)

Tobacco, alcohol and poor diet are the main risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and respiratory disease that kills approximately 35 million per year. Out of the three risk factors, an inadequate diet was found to the culprit of more diseases than smoking and liquor consumption combined. In Aseem Malhorta’s (2014) article “Sugar is now enemy number one in the western diet”, he claims that added sugar should be regulated as it is a health hazard that has caused the increasing prevalence of diabetes and obesity. Malhorta only focuses on sugar being the main causative agent in causing negative health outcomes, he fails to address the fact that there are many other confounding factors associated with each disease

Sugar is, and has always been, unavoidable; conversely, sugar has not always been toxic. Naturally abundant and technically enhanced, this substance has followed in the footsteps of tobacco and alcohol, becoming just as unhealthy and ultimately lethal. And, without the implementation of government

Food consumption that is high in sugar has been linked with obesity rates, so in order to cut obesity rates we must avoid a heavy load of sugar intake. In order to understand why sugar is “trending” as something to avoid in our diet, here are some reasons why: sugar has been found to be poor for our metabolism and harmful to our health (Flegal). It contains no essential nutrients. Sugar is also high in fructose, which can essentially overload your liver. Sugar can also cause insulin resistance. This is something strongly correlated with obesity rates, which can also be associated with diabetes. So with sugars effects to insulin resistance, it can be a contributor to type II diabetes as well as other chronic diseases. A specific note of this diabetes influence sugar has comes for an analysis done on caloric consumption and diabetes. “When people ate 150 calories more every day, the rate of diabetes went up 0.1%. But if those 150 calories came from a can of fizzy drink, the rate went up 1.1%” (Lambert) showing that added sugar is eleven times more harmful within the same calorie

Sugar is a very common thing we can find in our modern world. It’s in the majority of what we eat, drink, and snack on. Convenience is its best friend, because it can be found anywhere we look. We can find it at our corner gas station, our local supermarket, favorite movie theater, and in our own homes. Sugar is so closely related to the obesity crisis, and is believed to be the number one reason obesity exists.

Sweetness has been the obsession that affected humans for many years. It is the satisfaction that people seem to like, however, there might be a downfall to this addiction with sugar. There have been studies that claimed that the obesity rates in America have increased dramatically for over the past 20 years (Eatwell.com, 2012). Obesity rates have increased by double that it has made it to the top three health concerns in America. Experts are trying to find out what causes obesity. Moreover, there are studies that linked with drinking large amounts of sugar-sweetened beverages that a child can risk obesity. This might possibly prove that obesity can be caused by sugar-sweetened food.

The main argument to be made here is that the only kind of sugars we should consume are natural sugars. Too much food these days contain high fructose corn syrup and other additives that our bodies can't handle. Some good natural sugars include ripe fruit and raw honey. Our bodies need natural sugar in order to function properly because, "when our cells don't have enough glucose to do their job they find alternative means by which to get their energy, particularly through fat or even our own body tissue. Always remember to be careful, though, as too much of anything is still bad.

The primary goal of my behavior change project was not to eliminate my sugar intake entirely, but to cut back on the amount of sugar that I consumed per day to a healthier amount. Before this project, I was consuming 1-2 twelve packs of soda per week. Each soda can contains 48g of sugar…that’s 576-1,152g of sugar! According to the American Heart Association (AHA), the maximum amount of added sugars you should eat in a day are (7): Men: 150 calories per day (37.5 grams or 9 teaspoons). Women: 100 calories per day (25 grams or 6 teaspoons).This is a six week project, in which each week I will decrease my sugar intake, until I reach zero grams of sugar per day.

164). In fact, a lot of other factors were considered in the rise of obesity,such as age group, education, water-consumption, and more. Although added sugars are a huge part of obesity, researchers have been able to link many other factors to the rise of obesity and as such, added sugars may not be the only factor in reducing obesity for every person.Like obesity, added sugars have a direct link to the increased development of diabetes. The increase of added sugars within chosen society trends, have escalated the prevalence of diabetes within the United States. Researchers believe that, “sugar-sweetened beverages are the primary source of added sugars in the U.S. diet” (Malik, Popkin, Bray, Després, Willett, & Hu, 2010, pg. 2477). In addition to added sugars within sugar-sweetened beverages, any item containing added sugars can lead to an increased risk of developing diabetes.However, “while experimental and observational studies suggest that sugar intake is associated with the development of type 2 diabetes, independent of its role in obesity, it is unclear whether alterations in sugar intake can account for differences in diabetes prevalence among overall populations” (Basu, Yoffe, Hills, & Lustig, 2013, pg. 1). While diabetes does have a direct link tothe increase in added sugars, other factors such as total calories, obesity, age

As we hear of more studies exclaiming alarming findings of negative health concerns related to obesity and our continuously growing percentage of obesity in our country, particularly childhood obesity, sugar is in the spotlight. We often hear of dieticians and weight loss experts warning us that we