Liverpool health officials are informing parents about the amount of sugar in popular brands of soft drinks.
A new campaign in the north-western city titled Is your child’s sweet tooth harming their health? is using cut-out boards of bottles in public places to highlight how many sugar cubes there are in drinks such as Lucozade and Coca Cola.
The aim is to tackle an alarming level of tooth decay in children.
Around 2,000 children in the city will have had extractions by the age of five, and more than a third will have suffered from tooth decay.
Cllr Tim Beaumont, mayoral lead for wellbeing, said: ‘What we’re trying to do through this campaign is get the message across that even drinks which are marketed as healthy such as orange juice and flavoured water have large amounts of sugar in them.
‘This is about getting families and young children into healthy habits which will hopefully last a lifetime and prevent future unnecessary pain and trauma.’
The campaign highlighted that 500ml of Lucozade contains 15.5 cubes of sugar while an equivalent bottle of Coca-Cola has 13.5 cubes. The maximum daily allowance for children (depending on age) is five to seven cubes.
Even healthier options, the health officials say, such as Tropicana orange juice have 7.5 sugar cubes in a 300ml bottle.
