Reason Behind your Child's Sugar Cravings

Almost all kids love sweet but some crave more for sugary foods. Why? Well, some kids may need more amount of sugar to feel the taste as their sugar sensitivity is lesser compared to other kids. A new research proved this fact recently.

Some kids are 20 times more sensitive than others and they detect even negligible quantities of sugar in any food stuff. But others who are not so sensitive will not be able to detect the sugar content in a particular food stuff unless the sugar content is very high.

So, if your kid is less sugar sensitive and if you curb sugar intake then your child's sugar cravings may increase. As a part of the research, health experts studied nearly 200 children. They used sucrose as the sugar. The children were of the age group 7-14.

Researchers used two glasses of water out of which one is plain water whereas the other is sugar water. They made the sugar solution very mild with very less amount of sugar in it.

When each kid tasted the water from both of the glasses, the sensitive kids could make out that the second glass contained sugar water whereas the children who are less sensitive failed to make out that it is sugar water in the second glass.

Researchers confirmed that sensitive children just need a pinch of sugar in glass of water to detect that it is sugar water. But children who are not sensitive may require at least 3 spoons of sugar to call it sugar solution.

So, the sensitivity or the sugar threshold varies form one person to another and even genes may affect this quality. Generally, children who are not sensitive to sugar tend to consume more calories, that too in the form of sugar.

So, scientists finally concluded that sugar consumption can also be related to sugar sensitivity and also the bitter-receptor-gene. This research also claims that higher body fat percentage is also linked with sweet sensitivity.