It’s no secret that sugar has a bad reputation when it comes to eating a “healthy” or “clean” diet.
But the idea that you can’t be healthy if you don’t cut out all sugar is a problematic one because it has the potential to give people an unhealthy relationship with food which can, and probably will, make you less healthy long term.
The myth of sugar being terrible for you is amplified by news outlets and other non-experts listening to experts who do a very poor job of examining the research, as can be seen in one 2014 article from The Guardian.
As a student on the path to becoming a registered dietitian, it breaks my heart to see people avoid food that they want to eat just because someone tells them it’s unhealthy.
This avoidance tends to lead people to cravings, and at some point, they can’t take it anymore and binge. This overeating is what actually leads to negative health outcomes.
The reason why sugar may be giving someone bad health markers is because food with sugar in it tends to be hyper-palatable, high in fat and high in calories.
Consistent overconsumption of calories is what will lead a person to gain weight, according to a Sept. 12, 2022 StatPearls research article.
If you gain too much weight in fat, this can lead to obesity, which has a number of negative health outcomes, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, according to the World Health Organization.
In other words, if you regularly eat a lot of cake, you’ll probably gain weight but it’s not the sugar that is causing you to gain weight, it’s the fact that the cake is high in calories and sugar is what makes the cake taste better and makes you want to eat more.
So if you want to eat sugar but don’t want to gain weight, if you’re able to control yourself from eating too much, then the best idea is to just limit the amount you eat, not to completely exclude it.
When calories were accounted for, there was no significant difference in weight gain or blood pressure when substituting sugar from complex carbohydrates with free sugars, according to a January 2017 systematic review and meta-analysis from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Free sugars are sugars that can be found naturally in some food combined with added sugar, whereas sugar from complex carbohydrates is just the naturally occurring sugar, according to the World Health Organization.
Systematic review and meta-analysis are essentially studies that interpret a collection of studies and make a conclusion based on their results. Systematic review and meta-analysis are considered the highest level of medical evidence, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
This research should not be mistaken as an excuse to eat as much sugar as you like, but rather a reassurance that you aren’t poisoning yourself if you choose to eat some ice cream or cookies every once in a while.
Even eating a cookie or two or some other sweet treat every day could be considered perfectly healthy if you are able to fit it into your daily calorie expenditure.
Daily calorie expenditure is the amount of calories you burn every day, including things like exercise, breathing and even activities that don’t require moving such as reading, according to Harvard Health Publishing.
The argument that sugar is bad for you sounds even dumber when you consider the fact that all fruits and vegetables have sugar in them. When have you ever heard of a person who gained too much weight from eating fruit?
Fruits and vegetables are primarily sources of carbohydrates and once carbohydrates are ingested, they eventually break down into glucose, also called blood sugar, according to The Nutrition Source from Harvard School of Public Health.
So if all sugar is bad, then apparently you aren’t supposed to be eating fruit or vegetables, despite them being recommended to be included in your diet by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to a MyPlate webpage.
But the sugar in fruit and vegetables is natural, so it’s the added sugar that is bad for you, right?
Well, as stated previously, all sources of carbohydrate eventually break down into glucose, so that would mean that glucose is bad for you, and glucose is your body’s primary source of fuel, according to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Fruits and vegetables do have fiber, which is very beneficial compared to carbohydrate sources with added sugar for those with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes and this tends to be lacking in sweet treats, according to the Center for Disease Control.
So if you have insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes, in this instance, it’s probably not the greatest idea to consume too much added sugar because of the lack of fiber in most cases.
It’s true that eating fruit is a “healthier” option than eating cake or donuts, but it’s important to understand that you can still be healthy and eat tasty food as long as you are mindful of your diet.
Another argument against sugar is that it is addictive, but there is very little evidence to support this notion, according to a European Journal of Nutrition research article.
It’s true that sugar can make you want to eat more of it because it tastes good and that you can have cravings, but calling it an addiction alongside life-threatening addictions such as alcoholism, drug abuse and chronic gambling is a bit far-fetched.
In many cases, people addicted to something like alcohol get to a point where they feel like they can’t live without it. This is not the same as wanting something sweet to end your day, for example.
Understanding that it’s okay to eat food you love is what creates a healthy relationship with food, and in turn, a healthy person.
Good dieting is not about excluding things from your diet, it’s about your holistic approach to creating habits that will improve your health over the course of your life.
So the next time you’re celebrating a friend’s birthday and you want to have cake, or you’re going out for ice cream, or you just want to treat yourself after a hard week, know that it’s okay to have a little sweet treat.
