Sweet tooth?

Reader question:

Please explain “sweet tooth” in this sentence: Statista Consumer Insights reveals that Brits have the biggest sweet tooth among 21 nations surveyed.

My comments:

The British craves sweet sugary foods the most, according to Statista Consumer Insights.

According Statista.com, “Statista Consumer Insights offer a global perspective on consumption and media usage, covering the offline and online world of the consumer. They are based on more than 2,000,000 online interviews conducted in 56 countries and territories.”

Anyways, their survey finds that the Brits have the biggest sweet tooth amongst 21 countries surveyed.

And that means the Brits love sugar the most, more than people from those other countries do. Not just plain white sugar, of course, but anything sugary and sweetened, such as candies, cakes and chocolates.

Sweetened soft drinks, too, come to think of it.

They just crave sweet foods – because they have a sweet tooth for them.

Here’s an explanation of sweet tooth from Grammarist.com:

“Sweet tooth” is a common term we use in English to describe someone’s hankering for sweet foods or if they have a strong craving for sugary treats when they don’t normally eat sweet things.

It’s mostly used in an informal context and has no literal meaning. But it does make me think of my family dentist, who calls cavities “sweet teeth.”

In short, having a sweet tooth means having a special taste and liking for foods that are sweet.

As to whether you can trust the above survey that the Brits really crave sugar more than Americans, the French, the Dutch, Italians or us Chinese do, I’ll leave that judgment up to you.

For now, read a few media examples of “sweet tooth”:

1. Sweetness may be contagious. A growing body of research has revealed that the type of people who have a sweet tooth may also have a sweet temperament.

“According to the conceptual metaphor theory, metaphors such as ‘love is sweet’ may be more than just linguistic terms – they can build scaffolds to unconsciously guide our behavior,” says Michael Schaefer, a neuropsychologist at Medical School Berlin.

In research published in 2012, Brian Meier, a psychologist at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, and his colleagues studied the potential link between sweets and temperament. They confirmed that people commonly believed those with a sweet tooth were typically more agreeable.

In other tests, the team gave sweet chocolate to some participants and non-sweet food like crackers to others, and found that the former were more likely to help people in need. They also found that people who professed a liking for sweet foods were more likely than those who did not like sweet foods to assist in cleaning up their city after a flood.

Not all researchers agreed with these findings. In 2014, Michael Ashton, a psychologist from Brock University in Canada, and his colleagues tried to replicate Meier’s 2012 findings by running similar experiments, but with a much larger number of participants. They couldn’t find a strong link between a preference for sweet food and an agreeable personality.

“We conclude that prosocial personality is not substantially associated with sweet taste preferences,” Ashton and his team wrote in their study.

Nonetheless, other researchers conducted similar tests, and did find a link between agreeableness and a taste for sweet food.

Not every culture perceives food the same way, just as not every culture necessarily has the same temperament. To address any potential cultural differences, Meier and his colleagues wanted to approach the question using participants from different countries.

“Cultures may be different both in taste preferences as well as in their temperament,” says Schaefer, who worked with Meier on a recent study published in the Journal of Research in Personality.

Their team tested participants from China, Germany, Mexico, and the United States. They asked people to rate their liking for salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and spicy food, as well as what kinds of sweet foods they liked. They then compared these to results they gathered from an established questionnaire that examined the “Big Five” personality factors. Agreeableness is one of the five traits examined from this test. They found that the link between taste and personality were replicated in other cultures.

Schaefer notes there are some drawbacks to the study. Participants were asked to describe their own personalities, which may differ in some cases to the way others see them.

“In other words, individuals who like sweets may only see themselves as being more social and being a sweetie – but this may not reflect their real behavior or the view by others,” he says.

A sweet tooth may not be the only thing that affects agreeableness. Schaefer says that in some countries, preferences for salty food may be also linked to agreeableness. But the evidence isn’t as strong.

- Having a Sweet Tooth May Mean You're a More Agreeable Person, DiscoverMagazine.com, March 1, 2025.

2. Congratulations are in order because Shang-Chi star Simu Liu is engaged! In a May 2025 social media post, the actor shared that he popped the question to his longtime girlfriend, digital marketing manager Allison Hsu, in Paris. Talk about a fairytale moment!

With wedding planning on the horizon for Simu and Allison, let's take a closer look at this adorable couple's relationship timeline.

Nov. 20, 2022 – Simu and Allison go Insta-official!

In late November 2022, Allison kicked off dating rumors by posting a sweet photo of herself and Simu, both all smiles as the Marvel actor held her from behind. Her simple caption, just a “:),” subtly confirms their romance!

Nov. 29, 2022 – Allison and Simu make their red carpet debut.

Just days after going Instagram official, Simu and Allison stepped out for their first red carpet! Dressed in festive sweaters, they posed together at the premiere of Violent Night.

...

April 19, 2023 – Allison wishes Simu a happy birthday!

To celebrate the Last Breath actor's 34th birthday, Allison posted a heartfelt tribute on Instagram. Alongside a carousel of photos of Simu, she wrote, “Happy birthday to my favorite boy <3 The funniest, warmest, most thoughtful, kind, and precious human. Love you for having a sweet tooth as bad as mine and for making every day better.”

- Simu Liu and Allison Hsu Are Engaged! Here's a Look at Their Relationship Timeline, Distractify.com, May 12, 2025.

3. The state banquet held for the visit of US President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, has made headlines for various reasons, most notably the gorgeous golden gown worn by the Princess of Wales and the question of whether Melania and Tiffany broke royal protocol with their ensembles. However, the US President has given royal watchers a bit of an insight into what the food served at the Windsor Castle event was like – and it’s a short, but blunt one.

When asked what he ate at the banquet that had been held in his honour, he told reporters: “Whatever the hell they served us.” The feast began with a Hampshire watercress panna cotta with parmesan shortbread and quail egg salad, with the main being an organic Norfolk chicken ballotine wrapped in courgettes, with a thyme and savoury infused jus. Given the King’s passion for environmental activism, serving organic chicken at a State Banquet both comes as no surprise and makes quite a statement.

For dessert, the attendees were served a bombe glacée cardinal, which is a bombe made with vanilla ice cream, that had a Kentish raspberry sorbet interior and was served with lightly poached Victoria plums. The 79-year-old is known to have quite the sweet tooth, so we expected that he thoroughly enjoyed the bombe.

- Donald Trump’s baffling 6-word verdict on food served at Windsor Castle banquet, HelloMagazine.com, September 19, 2025.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：张欣）