Which Cereals Are Really Making You and Your Children Fat?

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Which Cereals Are Really Making You and Your Children Fat?

Childhood obesity is one of the biggest problems our country is facing at the moment, obesity levels are skyrocketing and it’s only a short number of years away before the NHS just can’t handle the cost of treating the uncountable health impacts of being overweight. In fact just to scare you all a little more, the latest figures (2012/2013) show 18.9% of children in Year 6 (Age 10-11) and below are classified as obese! And a further 14.4% are overweight! That means that one third of our population below the age of 11 is overweight!

This rapid rise in obesity is in direct correlation to the amount of sugar consumed on a daily basis, we now consume on average an astonishing 93.5 grams of sugar per day! That’s about 23 teaspoons! Now all throughout my childhood and I’m sure it’s the same for you, I was told that eating cereals for breakfast was healthy for me, I’m not here to dispute that fact, but some of the cereals being sold, especially those touted as being “healthy”, contain a huge amount of sugar.

Eating these sugary cereals in the morning causes an immediate rise in the hormone insulin. This shuts off your fat burning capabilities and the feedback mechanism that tells your body to stop producing insulin is slightly delayed, causing your levels to crash to an even lower range than normal. This has numerous effects on your body;

1.      Causes your energy levels to drop dramatically.

2.      Reduces your attention span and cognitive function.

3.      Increases your appetite, encouraging you to snack on even more sugary products.

4.      Raises the levels of another hormone called cortisol, excessive cortisol can result in increased fat storage, depression, allergies, immune weakness, chronic fatigue syndrome and many other serious side effects.

So now hopefully you can see the effect that sugary cereals will have on you and your child throughout the day. I’m not telling you that all cereals are bad for you, far from it, a low sugar, high carbohydrate based breakfast will provide you with the energy to perform well until lunchtime without the crash associated with the more sugary products. To help you make a wise choice for yourself and your family, I have compiled a chart listing the amounts of sugar contained in some of our well known cereals, you will be shocked at how much the “healthy” cereals such as Special K and Muesli actually contain!

Cereal (100g)	Carbohydrates	Sugars	Tsp of Sugar
Bite Size Shredded Wheat	69.6	0.7	0.2
Scottish Porridge Oats	62	1.2	0.3
Weetabix	38.6	2.6	0.7
Rice Krispies	101.5	10	2.5
Corn Flakes	80	10	2.5
Kellogs All Bran	47.5	17.5	4.4
Special K Original	80	21.3	5.3
Weight Watchers Honey Almond Crisp	80	22.5	5.6
Alpen Swiss Style Muesli	66.9	23.1	5.8
Cheerios	75.9	24.5	6.1
Golden Grahams	80.1	25.1	6.3
Special K Red Berries	87.1	29	7.3
Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes	82.5	32.5	8.1
Jordans Country Crisp Strawberries	76.6	32.6	8.2
Coco Pops	85	35	8.8
Frosties	87	37	9.3