The recommended quantity of sugar for kids a day should be 6 teaspoons or less a day.
Those 6 teaspoons are equal to about 100 calories, or 25grams, and include any sugars. Examples of such sugar are: table sugar, fructose, and honey that are used in the processing of foods and beverages.
However, this does not include naturally occurring sugars in foods such as diary products and whole fruits.
It is also recommended that sugars be completely omitted from the diets of children under 2, according to a scientific statement published in the journal Circulation.
Children under this age group need fewer calories than older kids as there is little room for extra foods that do not provide good nutrition.
When sugar is limited at this age, it helps to encourage children to develop a life long love for healthy foods because taste preferences are often formed early in life.
The best way to avoid adding sugar to your child’s daily diet is to cook and serve most foods that has high nutrition such as lean meat, low-fat diary products, poultry and fish, whole grains and vegetables and also to limit foods with little or no nutritional value.
Food such as sugar-sweetened beverages, energy drinks, fruit flavored and others have low nutritional value and should be limited for kids.
The American Heart Association says that limiting added sugars should be a goal for the whole family, as well. Like children, women are advised to take not one than six teaspoons a day, while men whose calorie requirements are high, can take more teaspoons but less than nine or 150 calories.