Added sugar and your child

For babies and children under 24 months, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans advise avoiding added sugars entirely. That is why KidoChoice does not calculate a per-serving percentage of a daily limit for this age — no quantitative limit exists. Instead, the product's ingredients are checked for added-sugar ingredients, and the age rule for the child's band decides what the recommendation shows.

A label that lists an added-sugar ingredient (sugar, corn syrup, honey, fruit juice concentrate and similar) without declaring a grams figure for Added Sugars is treated as present but unquantified. KidoChoice never reads a missing number as zero.

From age 2 through the teen years, the American Heart Association's recommendation for children is to keep added sugars under 25 grams a day. KidoChoice uses that as the age-specific daily reference: one serving is compared against it, and the share of the day it uses is described in words.

Using the FDA 5%/20% convention adapted to pediatric references, a serving under 5% of the day's reference is low, 5–20% is a moderate share, 20% or more is high, and 40% or more is very high. A high share can move a product's recommendation down one level; a very high share lands it at “Best Occasionally”. This is a description of the product for the selected age — not a verdict on your child.

KidoChoice never treats added sugar as a standalone danger score. When you scan a product for a specific child's age, one serving is compared with the age-specific daily reference for that nutrient, and the rest of the product — what it is, what category it belongs to, its other nutrients and ingredients — is considered at the same time.

Per-serving amounts are placed in bands adapted from the FDA 5%/20% Daily Value convention and applied to pediatric reference intakes: under 5% of the day's reference is low, 5–20% is a moderate share, 20% or more is a high share, and 40% or more is very high. FDA did not create or validate this pediatric adaptation; it is KidoChoice's internal product-interpretation framework, and the regulated wording used on food labels (“good source of”, “high in”) is not applied to it.

A high share of a limit nutrient can move a product's recommendation one level, or to “Best Occasionally” when it is very high — never a warning, and never a conclusion about your child. These are general educational descriptions of the product, not individualized medical advice.

The values on this page come from KidoChoice's stored reference intakes and locked nutrition methodology, each tied to a specific published source:

• Before age 2 — avoid added sugars: U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services, Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030.
• Under 25 g/day from age 2: American Heart Association, Added Sugars and Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Children (2017).
• Per-serving interpretation bands (5%/20%/40%): KidoChoice's internal product-interpretation framework, applying the FDA 5%/20% Daily Value convention to pediatric reference intakes.

How we weigh evidence day to day is described on How KidoChoice evaluates products, and what we do and do not publish is covered by our editorial policy.