Sweetners never were a problem to me back in the days when they were only in diet products because I have never "needed" or used diet products. As they began to infiltrate standard products, I gradually dropped brands such as Robinsons because they tasted rubbish. Actually, I can remember one day waiting for pick-up from school with a persistant sweet, metalic taste in my mouth... several hours earlier I had unusually had an Apple Tango from the school canteen rather than my usual Calypso juice carton.
I did notice that chewing gum gave me a throbbing headache. I though it was the repetitive chewing action until I tried a different brand upon dentist's advice and realised it was the aspartame. The Lidl version was better, but still left an after taste and stubborn thirst for the next few hours, the same issue I have from soft drinks.
Last spring, I ended up pouring several litres of squash down the drain because I initially couldn't work out why my usual High-Juice or Ribena now tasted like soap... it was the sugar tax stealth recipe change. No change of recipe was highlighted on the packaging, just small detail tucked down the ingredient list and a change of colour coded dietary information.
I just think our understanding of mass consumption of artificial sweetners is poorly understood at present. Science is great. I like the way science proves on a mass scale that my kids are safer from the MMR vaccine than the high risk of being moderately ill with a combination of measles, mumps or rubella through their childhoods and possibly suffering less common, more serious side effects. Areas such as gut health are pretty new areas of study. Science can only prove what you know you are looking for. The science of nutrition has had a lot of misunderstanding and misleading information in recent decades. High fat was bad. Eggs were bad for cholesterol. The NHS is being slow to catch up with improved understanding, meanwhile the problem of obesity increases.
With the temporary exception of two pregnancies, I have always maintained a healthy weight and active lifestyle. My teeth are fairly decent too. I seem to manage a sensible intake of sugars from full sugar (and full fat) products. I drink a lot of water and fruit tea (just don't like tea or coffee and am intolerant to milk) and like some sugary drinks along the way through life as only water to drink would get pretty dull within weeks.
My kids mainly drink water. I have no qualms about giving them the occasional red label Coca Cola given the visible detail of their ribs and abdominal muscles that are barely concealed by their skin. I do have qualms about artificial sweetners, particularly when quite strong in a product like Fruit Shoot because DS1's mood is explosive afterwards.
I'm not saying ban sweetners, but they do clearly cause a section of society identifiable problems, and there should be some kind of choice out there other than plain water or Classic Coca Cola for people who have no need to be forced towards diet products. Labeling of food and drink should always be clear.