Sweet Nothings
 

Sweet Nothings
Date: 5/1/02; Publication: Parenting; Author: Sally Kuzemchak

As obesity rates rise, more foods on the supermarket shelves are offering a tempting compromise: all the tastiness of sweet treats with fewer calories and no sugar. But are artificial sweeteners good for your family?

They can be. A primer on the most common ones:

--SACCHARIN is the oldest approved sweetener and is best knownas Sweet 'N Low.

--ASPARTAME, marketed under the brand names NutraSweet and Equal, can be found in a variety of foods.

--ACESULFAME-K, called Sunette and Sweet One, is added to fruit juice and soda and can be used for baking and cooking.

--SUCRALOSE, also known as Splenda, is made from real sugar but is calorie-free, since it isn't digested by the body. It's added to cookies, drinks, and gum and sold in granulated form for cooking and baking.

Though controversy has long surrounded artificial sweeteners, they' re considered safe. Even saccharin, which was once shown to cause cancer in animals and had carried a warning label, was recently given a clean bill of health by the U.S. government. No studies have proved that they negatively affect kids' health or behavior.

If your child has a weight problem or you're concerned that he's headed in that direction, artificially sweetened foods and drinks may have a place in his diet, says Mark Wolraich, M.D.,professor of pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. "They can be helpful in reducing these kids'overall calorie intake." But, he says, if your child is growing at a healthy rate, there's no good reason to use them.

And substituting faux sugar for the real thing isn't an easy solution for fighting obesity, experts stress. That requires achange in overall eating and exercise habits.

--SALLY KUZEMCHAK