Recent dietary guidance from the UK recommends that, for those aged 2 years and over, the average population intake of free sugars should not exceed 5 % of total energy intake (%TE)⁽¹⁾. ‘Free’ sugars include all mono- and di-saccharides added to foods by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, plus sugars naturally present in honey, syrups and unsweetened fruit juices⁽¹⁾. The objective of this study was to estimate the intake and sources of dietary sugars (including free sugars) in 1 to 4 year old Irish children using data from the Irish National Pre-School Nutrition Survey 2010–11 (www.iuna.net) which collected detailed food and beverage intake data using a 4d weighed food diary. Energy, total sugars and lactose values were derived from the UK Food Composition Tables⁽²⁾ and product labels. Non-milk sugars were calculated as total sugars minus lactose. Free sugars values were assigned to each food and beverage consumed by adapting a systematic approach used to calculate added sugars content in foods and beverages⁽Reference Louie and Moshtaghian³⁾ and guidance from Public Health England on the calculation of free sugars. Mean intakes of total, non-milk and free sugars were calculated via the NCI-method⁽Reference Tooze, Kipnis and Buckman⁴⁾ using SAS© Enterprise Guide and key sources of free sugars were determined using SPSS v21.0.

Table 1.

Mean daily intakes of total, non-milk and free sugars (g, %TE) in Irish children aged 1–4 years

Table 2.

% Contribution of key food-groups to intake of free sugars in Irish children aged 1–4 years

Intakes of total sugars (%TE) were similar across ages whereas intakes of non-milk and free sugars (%TE) increased with increasing age from 1–4 years. Mean intakes of free sugars far exceeded the UK recommended maximum of 5 % of total energy at each age with a number of food categories contributing to these intakes. These findings will be useful in developing dietary strategies to reduce the intakes of free sugars for pre-school children in Ireland.