RESEARCH ARTICLE


The Contribution of Confectionery to the Global Obesity Epidemic: a Review



Simonetta Ballali1, Maria Gabriella Vecchio1, Daniele Chiffi2, Claudia Elena Gafare3, Dario Gregori2, *
1 Prochild Onlus, Trieste, Italy
2 Unit of Biostatistics, Public Health and Epidemiology, Dept. Cardiology, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padova, Italy
3 Department of Nutrition, University of Buenos Aires and Food and Diet Therapy Service, Acute General Hospital Juan A. Fernández, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2013
Volume: 5
First Page: 43
Last Page: 46
Publisher Id: TOOBESJ-5-43
DOI: 10.2174/1876823720130419005

Article History:

Received Date: 22/01/2013
Revision Received Date: 30/01/2013
Acceptance Date: 03/04/2013
Electronic publication date: 28/6/2013
Collection year: 2013

© 2013 Ballali et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Unit of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Public Health, Department of Cardiology, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padova, Via Loredan, 18, 35121 Padova – Italy; Tel: +39 049 8275384; Fax: +39 02 700445089; E-mail: dario.gregori@unipd.it


Abstract

Obesity has become, nowadays, a global concern affecting both developed and developing countries. Nutrition and physical activity represent the major factors influencing energy balance and subsequently weight status. Deciding toward an appropriate intake of all nutrients is seen as necessary to maintain a wholesome lifestyle: among nutrients, sugar plays a major role and its consumption has long been seen as an issue in public health, due to its possible role in displacing or diluting nutrients in the diet and contributing to the epidemic of obesity.

A research on Pubmed was assessed to evaluate the impact of confectionery consumption, as sugar source, on the daily energy intake. The studies considered in the current paper generally failed to show that confectionery consumption leads necessarily to a shift of energy intake. Anyway, considering that till now, very few works on this topic were conducted, more researches are necessary to demonstrate the effective influence of confectionery on daily energy intake.

Keywords: Added sugars, confectionery, consumption, daily energy intake, diet, obesity.