Abstract
(1) Background: This study aims to find the sugar content of market beverages and estimate the sugar intake from beverages among students in Beijing. (2) Methods: Using snapshotting, we collected the sugar content of beverages through their packages or nutrition labels. Combined with the statistic of student beverage consumption, we estimated students’ sugar intake. (3) Results: The median sugar content of total beverages was 9.0 g/100 mL, among which the fruits/vegetable juices and beverages had the highest sugar content (10.0 g/100 mL). Sugar content in most beverages in Beijing was generally higher than the recommendations, and fruit/vegetable juices and beverages exceeded the most. The median of sugar intake from beverages among students was 5.3 g/d, and the main sources were fruit/vegetable juices and beverages, protein beverages and carbonated beverages. Sugar intake from beverages differed according to gender, age and living area. Higher sugar intake was found among boys, older students and rural students. (4) Conclusions: Sugar content in market beverages in Beijing were high. Gender, age and residence were the influencing factors of sugar intake. Targeted measures should be taken to decrease the sugar content in beverages, especially the fruit/vegetable juices and beverages and the sugar intake among students.
Highlights
Free sugar, including monosaccharides and disaccharides added to foods by food manufacturers or processors, is found mostly in sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) [1]
Higher sugar intake was found among boys, older students and rural students
Based on the GB/T 10789-2015, all the products were classified into eight categories, with 39.8% fruit/vegetable juices and beverages, 16.6% protein beverages, 12.9% carbonated beverages, 10.4% tea beverages, 7.6% flavored beverages, 6.9% coffee beverages, 3.2% beverages for special uses and 2.3% botanical beverages
Summary
Free sugar, including monosaccharides and disaccharides added to foods by food manufacturers or processors, is found mostly in sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) [1]. SSBs are defined as sugar-sweetened sodas, fruit drinks, sweetened tea beverages, sports/energy drinks and other drinks with added sugar [2]. Frequent intake of excessive SSBs is strongly associated with obesity [4], diabetes [5], hypertension [6] and dental caries [7] among children due to the high sugar and energy content and little nutritional value of SSBs. With the rapid urbanization, economic improvement and increasing westernized diet in China, there were 66.6% of the children consuming SSBs in 2013 [8], and the proportion of children who consumed SSBs more than once per week increased greatly from 14.2% in 2002 [9] to 79.2% in 2012 [10]. In China, the maximum of 50 g and best under 25 g added sugar per day was suggested in the dietary guidelines [16], which was emphasized in the National Nutrition Program (2017–2030)
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