The SACN recommendations apply to beverages that have ingredients such as aspartame, stevia, saccharin and sucralose.

The advisers say preschool children should become accustomed to drinking water instead.

SACN also recommends against giving young children unsweetened food.

However, the advisers say sweeteners may help older children reduce their sugar intake.

In addition, SACN recommends that the government:

• monitors the sweetener content of food and drinks in the UK diet and their consumption, including trends, particularly among high-consuming and vulnerable groups
• evaluates the impact of policies to reduce energy and sugar intakes on intakes of sweeteners, particularly among high-consuming and vulnerable groups
• compels industry to make publicly available data on the amounts of individual sweeteners within foods to enable monitoring and further research on associations with health outcomes.

In response, Professor Robin May, chief scientific adviser at the Food Standards Agency, said: 'We strongly support SACN's call for industry to make data on the quantity of these sweeteners in their ingredients publicly available to provide better information on how much people are consuming and to help inform our assessments of these ingredients.'