Patterns of sugar consumption in early childhood.

Patterns of sugar consumption were studied prospectively in a birth cohort of 231 Norwegian children. Information on dietary habits and sugar consumption was collected at the children's ages of 10 months, 18 months, and 2 yr. The results of the factor analyses showed that the children's sugar consumption constituted a separate dimension of dietary habits. Patterns of sugar consumption seemed to be established already during infancy. The children's sugar consumption increased from infancy to the age of 2 yr, and the patterns of sugar consumption also seemed to be maintained throughout the first years of early childhood. Sugar consumption was also analyzed multivariately using indicators of social background and family size as explanatory variables, but the explanatory power of these variables was rather poor and decreasing with age.