*Flashback Friday*

*This post originally appeared on The PediaBlog on November 26, 2019.

 

Choices: Water, Milk, “Nothing”

 

Graphic: Healthy Eating Research (click to enlarge)

 

In a joint policy statement with the American Heart Association published earlier this year, the American Academy of Pediatrics bluntly described the health consequences for children who drink sugar-sweetened beverages excessively:

Excess consumption of added sugars, especially from sugary drinks, contributes to the high prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity, especially among children and adolescents who are socioeconomically vulnerable. It also increases the risk for dental decay, cardiovascular disease, hypertension,  dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes mellitus, fatty liver disease, and all-cause mortality.

 

American consumers spend over $1 billion annually on popular children’s fruit drinks and flavored waters. U.S. beverage companies spend a lot, too ($20 million in 2018), to market their products directly to parents AND children. Such marketing can be confusing, Sandee LaMotte discovered:

Two-thirds of the 34 sweetened drinks analyzed in the Children’s Drink Fact report contained no juice, yet images of fruit appeared on 85% of the packages. Most drinks which did contain juice capped the amount at 5%.

“Most of the sweetened drinks say, ‘good source of vitamin C’ or ‘100% vitamin C’ but they have no or little juice,” Harris said. “A lot of them say ‘low sugar,’ ‘less sugar.’ But they don’t say it’s because there’s added low-calorie artificial sweeteners in there. It’s just very confusing.

“It’s not just parents. Children are being exposed to advertising, the report found. Kids between the ages of 2 and 11 saw twice as many ads for sweetened drinks than ads for beverages without added sugars, and four times as many ads as adults.

 

Juice boxes and pouches with plastic straws — features that make beverages such as these so convenient for parents to hand off to their kids — often have no juice in them whatsoever…

Two of the most popular drinks — Kool Aid Jammers and Capri Sun Roarin’ — advertised their drinks directly to kids on children’s TV programs, the report said.

Both drinks contain 0% juice but have pictures of fruit on the front of the packaging.

 

… but do contain an awful lot of sugar:

One third of all the sweetened fruit drinks contained at least 16 grams of sugar, more than half of the maximum amount of sugar a child is supposed to get each day. A few are even worse, like Coca-Cola’s Minute Maid Lemonade fruit drink.

“The small 6-ounce juice box has 21 grams of sugar,” Harris said. “Children are not supposed to consume more than 25 grams of sugar a day. So that one juice box would use up most of that allowance for the day.”

 

What’s the alternative to sugar-sweetened beverages?

— 0 to 6 months of life: breast milk and/or formula only.

— 6-12 months: breast milk, formula, and clean water.

— 12-24 months: Breast milk, pasteurized whole milk, and clean water.

— 2 years and older: Low-fat milk and clean water.

 

While giving a small amount (no more than 4-6 ounces a day) of 100% fruit juice is acceptable after the first birthday, it is recommended that parents offer the actual fruit to eat instead of the juice to drink. Juices don’t contain the fiber present in fruit which aids in digestion and metabolism of fructose, fruit’s natural sugar. And parents who are tempted to offer their children water flavored with “a splash” of juice should reconsider. That only conditions children to prefer sugar-sweetened beverages over water — a preference that can last for life, compounding the health risks.

Most pediatricians agree that giving children the choice of water, milk, or “nothing” is the best strategy. Nothing is an appropriate choice because when kids are really thirsty, they will drink anything. After the first birthday, dropping milk as a choice is perfectly appropriate because by then, children don’t need to drink milk anymore. And they certainly don’t need to be served fruit juices and sugar-sweetened beverages.

In April, The PediaBlog took a more in-depth look at the AAP’s policy statement on reducing children’s consumption of sugary drinks here.

 

 

source http://www.thepediablog.com/2021/11/26/flashback-friday-182/