Why kids yearn for chocolates decoded

Washington: Ever wondered why your kid yearns for more chocolates than other children? It could be because they need more sugar to get that same sweet taste, a new study suggests. According to the research from the Monell Chemical Senses Centre in US, sensitivity to sweet taste varies widely across school-aged children and is partly genetically-determined. “Some children are twenty times better at detecting sugar than others. As sugar becomes more restricted and even regulated in children’s diets, the less sugar-sensitive children may get less of a ‘sweet signal’ and therefore have a harder time dealing with sugar reduction,” said Danielle Reed from Monell Centre. The researchers determined the sweet taste threshold, defined as the lowest detectable level of sucrose, of 216 healthy children between the ages of 7 and 14.