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Sweets consumption of preschool children—extent, context, and consumption patterns

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Abstract

Objectives

Sweets consumption is one of the risk factors of caries, especially among children. The aim of our study was to explore the extent and context of preschoolers’ sweets consumption and to identify high-risk groups.

Materials and methods

The baseline cross-sectional data used originated from a nutritional intervention study encompassing 879 parental surveys, which were obtained in 52 kindergartens in Baden-Württemberg—the third largest federal state in Germany—between September and March 2009. Our outcome variable “sweets consumption” was operationalized using food-frequency items and analyzed by testing the influence of sociodemographic, educational, cultural, and family context covariates.

Results

Most preschoolers consumed sweets every day—on average 9.7 ± 6.2 times per week. Most popular were cookies, gummy bears, and chocolate. Sweets consumption did not correlate significantly with sociodemographic factors like age and sex but rather was associated with cultural and contextual factors such as immigrant background, parental education, specific nutritional knowledge levels, and access arrangements in the home.

Conclusions

The consumption patterns identified are a result of high availability and parental influence (factors such as parents’ knowledge levels, interest in, and habits regarding their child’s nutrition).

Clinical relevance

Dental practitioners should place more emphasis on gathering information from young patients regarding excessive and frequent consumption of sweets and consequently on trying to educate the children and their parents on oral health risks associated with such consumption. Particular attention is to be paid to children of Turkish and Arabic decent, as they have been shown to consume above-average amounts of sweets.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the parents, children, families, and preschools for their cooperation. We also thank Silke Roehrig B.A., Tatiana Yarmoliuk M.A., Susanne Hirth B.A., Michaela Schlüter, and Hanna-Marei Steininger B.A. (all from the Mannheim Institute of Public Health, Social and Preventive Medicine) for supporting the preparation of this manuscript and Miranda Böttcher for the professional language support. This work was supported by a grant from the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung. F.D.B. is supported by the European Social Fund and by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg.

Ethical standards

The parents of all children participating in the study provided their written informed consent. Ethical approval was granted by the ethics committee of the Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University (ID 2008-275N-MA).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mannheim Institute of Public Health, Social and Preventive Medicine, Mannheim Medical Faculty, Heidelberg University, Ludolf-Krehl-Str. 7-11, 68167, Mannheim, Germany

    Sven Schneider, Moran Jerusalem & Freia De Bock

  2. Department of Conservative Dentistry, Division of Endodontics, University Hospital Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Johannes Mente

  3. Children’s Hospital, University Medicine Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany

    Freia De Bock

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  1. Sven Schneider
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  2. Moran Jerusalem
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  4. Freia De Bock
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Correspondence to Sven Schneider.

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Schneider, S., Jerusalem, M., Mente, J. et al. Sweets consumption of preschool children—extent, context, and consumption patterns. Clin Oral Invest 17, 1301–1309 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00784-012-0813-2

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