07 Jan 2016 UK: New ‘Sugar Smart’ app launched

Public Health England has launched a new ‘Sugar Smart’ app to help raise awareness of the dangerous levels of sugar in products consumer by children, causing an array of health problems for today’s youth including obesity and diabetes.

Parents are being encouraged to sign up for the free app which, by scanning the barcode of products tells the sugar content of food and drink in cubes or grams, aiming to help parents take control of their children’s sugar intake.

The “sugar smart app” works by scanning barcodes and revealing total sugar in cubes or grams. Officials hope it will help combat tooth decay, obesity and type two diabetes and encourage families to choose healthier alternatives.

PHE says young children are eating three times more than the sugar limit.

Its new Change4Life advertising campaign, which includes the sugar app, suggests that on average children aged four to ten years old are consuming 22kg of added sugar a year.

That’s about 5,500 sugar cubes – more than the weight of an average five-year-old child.

The app has been developed to raise awareness of how much sugar is contained in everyday food and drink. It works on more than 75 000 products, offering a quick guide to help parents to assess potential purchases that may harm their children’s health.

Chief Nutritionist for Public Health England, Dr Alison Tedstone, explained: “Children aged five shouldn’t have more than 19 grams of sugar per day – that’s five cubes, but it’s very easy to have more. That’s why we want parents to be ‘Sugar Smart’.

“If there’s one thing I’d strongly encourage parents to do, and that’s to swap sugary drinks out of their kids’ diets for either a low-sugar drink or water or low-fat milk, which would be a really excellent choice.”

She also said people might be surprised to discover the sugar contents, for example, of some yoghurts and fruit drinks.

The launch comes as the NGO, Diabetes UK, released new figures – extracted from patient data – showing that more than 4 million people in the UK now have diabetes.