Hi everyone this is Monica Reinagle the nutrition diva here with your quick and

dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous a couple of weeks ago I did a show on ways to slow the aging process and in that show I mentioned

that one way to slow down the aging process is to reduce the amount of sugar in your

diet.

So I heard from several of you asking for more

specifics on why sugar is bad and exactly how it harms your health. So today I

thought I'd do a deeper dive into the topic of sugar.

If you have a sweet tooth like I do,

maybe understanding exactly how sugar undermines your health

can help motivate you to keep a lid on the cookie jar.

Or in my case, to stay away from those little red Swedish fish that I love so much.

One of the most obvious reasons why sugary foods and drinks can undermine your health

is that they tend to be high in calories, but not that filling and that makes it easy to over-consume them and those excess calories can cause you to gain weight.

Another way that sugar negatively impacts nutrition and health is that it displaces other healthier foods.

People often eat sweets instead of other foods that are more nutritious and as a result their

overall nutrition suffers.

Put another way, if you were to replace sweets with

nutritious foods like fruits and vegetables, you'd greatly improve the nutritional quality

of your diet. But it's not just the empty calories that are the problem or even the excess calories

because even if you're getting all the nutrients you need and you're only

consuming enough calories to maintain a healthy weight eating a lot of sugar is

still bad for you and here are five of

...