12/11/2024
Lately I’ve noticed how often my clients are saying “I’m eating too much sugar”��I have this vision of them sitting there eating sugar out of the sugar pot - which I’m pretty sure no one is actually doing. Most of them are not just eating lollies either which are still only ~70% sugar. What most people are referring to, are foods that have added sugar, such as chocolate, cakes, sweet biscuits, ice-cream etc - and just for the record, plain dairy milk chocolate has slightly more energy from fat than sugar.
So why then, are people saying they are eating too much sugar rather than just saying too much chocolate (or other sweet food)?
Likely this is because so many health messages have made people believe sugar is BAD. Sugar itself is not bad, it’s a key nutrient for our body, our brain uses glucose (sugar) as its primary energy source to keep us alive and in Australia, sugar is derived from the plant sugar cane. Placing the blame on sugar ends up contributing to problematic eating behaviours and significant shame around eating and body weight. For many people, it’s the eating behaviours and shame that ultimately lead to health issues, not the sugar itself.
If a person is eating too much sweet food at the expense of other food and in a way that doesn’t feel good, then yes this can be damaging to health. But seeing the ingredient sugar as the problem, is rarely ever helpful, it just messes with people’s relationship with food and often leads to eating more sweet food.
Let’s stop referring to sweet food as sugar - let’s just call it what it is - chocolate, biscuits, lollies etc.
I also encourage my clients to refer to sweet food as sweet food and not sugary. Using the word sugary places a judgement on the food, sweet food is simply descriptive.
Zoe
Kerrie
