Sugar Smart Information for Schools

Sugar Smart is a campaign by food charity Sustain and Jamie Oliver working with councils, businesses, institutions and other sectors to help reduce overconsumption of sugar in their local areas.

Sugar Smart is working to raise public awareness of the impacts of consuming too much sugar, and supporting a cross-sector effort to improve local food environments, ensuring that the healthy choice is the easy choice.

We want to raise awareness of impact of added sugar in food and drinks and encourage school children to choose low sugar food and drinks.

Dental Habits for pupils

Did you know that every 10 minutes, a child in England has a rotten tooth removed?

Tooth decay is preventable but remains the most common reason for children aged 5-9 years old being admitted to hospital. That’s why we’ve created our first set of teaching resources on dental care for KS1 and KS2.

Teach your pupils the benefits of keeping their teeth healthy using our new presentations of Tilly the Tooth, a mighty molar who becomes unwell from having too many sweets and sugary drinks. Pupils can also see the effects of tooth decay with our simple science experiment!

Our new dental lesson plans are the first in a series of Change4Life school resources to help your pupils and their families learn about healthier eating habits. Keep an eye out for new resources launching in January.

Resources

Did you know...

  • An average British child is set to eat their own body weight in sugar, every year by the time they reach five years
  • Each year there are 8,500 limb amputations because of Type 2 diabetes.
  • 26,000 children are admitted to hospital every year for multiple tooth extraction under general anaesthetic caused by excessive sugar consumption.
  • 1 in 5 children starts primary schools overweight or obese and by the time they reach secondary school it's 1 in 3 children.
  • A small 150ml can of standard cola contains 4 teaspoons' worth of sugar, which is almost the maximum daily amount recommended for a small child, and more than half of an adult's

NHS guidelines state that the maximum consumption of sugar a day should be limited to:

  • 5 teaspoons' worth for children up to 6 years old
  • 6 teaspoons' worth for children up to 10 years old
  • 7 teaspoons' worth for everyone older

Too much sugar is bad for our health – added sugars should not make up more than 5% of our daily energy intake from food and drinks. Amongst children one of the largest contributors to obesity and dental decay is sugary soft drinks.

Useful links

Resources you can use in school:

If you have any queries please contact Monica Hill 

Email: Monica.hill@walthamforest.gov.uk

Last update: Monday 8th of June 2020 09:49:03 AM