Despite efforts from manufacturers to reduce sugar levels in their products, Americans keep gravitating toward sweeter alternatives. Those are the findings of a recently published study from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and North Carolina State University.
According to the American Heart Association (AHA), the average American consumes 17 teaspoons of added sugar every day, roughly double the recommended limit.
Excessive sugar consumption has been linked to a range of health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, some types of cancer and obesity. As a result, food manufacturers have come under pressure to create low sugar alternatives.
Despite reductions in sugar across many manufactured food products, Americans are still gravitating toward more sugary alternatives, studies show. Despite reductions in sugar across many manufactured food products, Americans are still gravitating toward more sugary alternatives, studies show. InspirationGP/GettyHowever, a new paper published in the journal Agribusiness shows that while food manufacturers reduced the sugar in their products by an average of 52.8 percent between 2007 and 2015, sugar intake by American consumers dropped by only 15.6 percent.
The discrepancy indicates that consumers have continued to gravitate toward sweeter alternatives despite industry reductions in sugar levels, co-authors Christian Rojas and Ezgi Cengiz suggest.
However, despite our desire for sweetness, the average household sugar intake slightly decreased. In 2007, the median U.S. household sourced 16.6 percent of its calories from added sugar. Eight years later, it had gone down to 14.2 percent. But the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that sugar should make up no more than 10 percent of our total caloric intake.
Our sugar consumption habits are also not consistent across the country. By analyzing the retail purchases of more than 60,000 households, between 2007 and 2015, Rojas and Cengiz found that high-income households, households with children and households with unmarried adults saw greater reduction in sugar intake.
"This finding suggests that existing disparities in diet quality have become more pronounced over time," the authors wrote.
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As well as sugar intake, Rojas and Cengiz have previously shown similar results for America's intake of sodium, showing that shifting consumer behavior had wiped out 90 percent of the sodium reduction observed in manufactured food products between 2007 and 2015.
Both studies conclude that while it is important for food manufacturers to consider reformulating their products to contain less sugar, policymakers should also focus more on improving consumer eating choices, especially among more vulnerable populations.
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