Frequent use of selected sugary products associates with thinness, but not overweight during preadolescence: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Convincing evidence suggests that diets laden with added sugar, specifically sugar-sweetened beverages, associate with excess weight in children. The relationships between sugar consumption frequency and BMI remain less well studied. We, therefore, evaluated children’s consumption frequency of selected sugary products (n 8461; mean age 11·1 (sd 0·9) years) selected from the Finnish Health in Teens cohort study. Using a sixteen-item FFQ including six sugary products (chocolate/sweets, biscuits/cookies, ice cream, sweet pastry, sugary juice drinks and sugary soft drinks), we calculated a Sweet Treat Index (STI) for the frequency of weekly sugary product consumption and categorised children based on quartiles (Q) into low (Q1, cut-off < 4·0), medium (Q2 + Q3, range 4·0–10·5) and high STI (Q4, cut-off > 10·5), and as thin, normal and overweight/obese based on the measured BMI. Through multinomial logistic regression analyses, we found that subjects with a high STI exhibited a higher risk of being thin (OR 1·20, 95 % CI 1·02, 1·41) and lower risk of being overweight (OR 0·79, 95 % CI 0·67, 0·92), while subjects with a low STI were at higher risk of being overweight (OR 1·32, 95 % CI 1·14, 1·53). High consumption frequencies of salty snacks, pizza and hamburgers most closely were associated with a high STI. Our findings suggest that consuming sugary products at a high frequency does not associate with being overweight. The relationship between a low consumption frequency and being overweight suggests that overweight children’s consumption frequency of sugary products may be controlled, restricted or underreported.

Sex- and weight-specific changes in the frequency of sweet treat consumption during early adolescence: a longitudinal study

“…Moreover, adjusting appeared to marginally impact the means and 95% confidence intervals (data not shown). Specifically, the lower proportion of children with overweight and the higher proportion of mothers with upper-level employment in the Fin-HIT cohort compared with the general Finnish population (27) suggest that our sample may be more health-conscious than the entire population, thus, our findings on sweet treat consumption may not apply to children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Moreover, participants with higher parental education may be more likely to continue through to follow-up (28) .…”

“…The association may be explained by overweight children restricting their sweet treat consumption (27) . Here, we speculate that adolescents who became overweight or centrally obese may have restricted their sweet treat consumption frequencies either as an attempt to control or reverse the weight gain or central obesity.…”

Dietary Sugar Intake and Its Association with Obesity in Children and Adolescents

“…Other studies have failed to observe an association between SSBs and body weight status in children [16][17][18][19][20]. Furthermore, studies investigating specifically total, added, or free sugars, depending on definition chosen, have been inconclusive with regards to their effect on weight in children and adolescents [14][15][16], despite the fact that in some populations sugar intakes were tabulated above the recommended levels among school aged children [14,17]. Finally, a recent systematic review has shown that dietary patterns which include sweets and other potential obesogenic foods may be contributing to childhood obesity via an interaction of foods and nutrients [22].…”

“…The association, therefore, between obesity rates and added sugars and/or total sugar intake remains under investigation, especially among children. Several studies have investigated the association of sugar intake and weight status in children [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. The majority of them have investigated potential effects of added sugars and SSB's on Body Mass Index (BMI).…”

“…This raises the question whether it is the whole dietary pattern, the sugar content consumed or the interaction of these, granted that artificially sweetened beverages do not provide added sugars or calories. Other studies have failed to observe an association between SSBs and body weight status in children [16][17][18][19][20]. Furthermore, studies investigating specifically total, added, or free sugars, depending on definition chosen, have been inconclusive with regards to their effect on weight in children and adolescents [14][15][16], despite the fact that in some populations sugar intakes were tabulated above the recommended levels among school aged children [14,17].…”