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There is much that we don’t know about the effects of sweeteners on children’s bodies because, as Sibson notes, “the evidence is mostly focused on adults”.
关于甜味剂对儿童身体的影响，我们还知之甚少，因为正如西布森指出的那样，“证据主要集中在成年人身上”。
But there are signs that some children are adversely affected by sweeteners before they are even born.
但有迹象表明，一些儿童甚至在出生前就受到了甜味剂的负面影响。
Meta-analysis from the WHO found that pregnant women who consumed a lot of sweeteners had a 25% higher risk of preterm birth.
世界卫生组织的元分析发现，食用大量甜味剂的孕妇早产风险增加了25%。
Meanwhile, in a big study from Canada, children whose mothers drank diet soda every day while pregnant were more than twice as likely to be overweight by the age of one.
与此同时，在加拿大的一项大型研究中，如果母亲在怀孕期间每天喝无糖汽水，那么，幼儿在一岁前超重的可能性是普通幼儿的两倍多。
Although the usual caveats about causation and correlation apply, researchers found that these associations remained, though to a lesser extent, after adjusting for the BMI of the mothers and their diet quality.
虽然通常要警惕混淆因果关系与相关关系，但研究人员发现，在调整了母亲的身体质量指数及其饮食质量后，仍然存在较小程度的联系。
One problem with sweeteners in the diet of children, Sibson says, is that the more children consume them, the more they develop a sweet palate and therefore crave sweetness in all its forms, with or without sugar.
西布森表示，儿童饮食中存在甜味剂的一个问题是，儿童摄入甜味剂越多，就越喜欢吃甜，因此会渴望各种形式的甜，不管含不含糖。
Research by Allison Sylvetsky in the US found that children and teenagers who drank more diet sodas also ended up consuming more sugar overall than children who drank water.
美国艾利森·西尔维茨基的研究发现，大量喝无糖汽水的儿童和青少年总体会比喝水的儿童摄入更多的糖。
This is an issue common to all sweeteners.
这是所有甜味剂普遍存在的问题。
Sibson notes that the very fact that people think sweeteners are not as unhealthy as sugar also makes us consume more of them.
西布森指出，人们认为甜味剂不像糖那样不健康，这一事实也使我们摄入了更多的甜味剂。
Barry Popkin is another nutrition expert who worries about the role of sweeteners in driving “sweetness preference” in young children.
巴里·波普金也是一位营养专家，他担心甜味剂会导致幼儿“偏好甜味”。
Popkin helped push for a new set of labelling laws in Mexico, which came into force in 2020: any food or drink containing sweeteners in Mexico must now carry a black warning sign saying “Contains sweeteners, not recommended for children”.
波普金帮助墨西哥推行了一套新的标签法，该法律于2020年生效: 在墨西哥，任何含有甜味剂的食品或饮料现在都必须携带黑色警告标志，写有“含有甜味剂，不建议儿童食用”。
A similar label will soon be required in Colombia.
哥伦比亚很快也将要求贴上类似的标签。
Every one of the experts I spoke to emphasised that by far the best answer for our health would be for people to get used to a less sweet diet; to learn to quench our thirst with water and unsweetened tea rather than sweetened drinks (whether the sweetness comes from sugar or sweeteners).
我采访过的每一位专家都强调，到目前为止，解决健康问题的最好办法是让人们习惯不那么甜的饮食; 学会用水和不加糖的茶来解渴，而不是喝加糖的饮料(无论甜味来自糖还是甜味剂)。
But sweeteners are no easy thing to give up.
但要放弃甜味剂可不是件容易事。
