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Fruit Juice a Two-Edged Sword for Kids
By Colette Bouchez
HealthScoutNews Reporter
MONDAY, May 5 (HealthScoutNews) -- If you stock
your refrigerator with fruit juices, you may be setting your kids up for
a battle with obesity.
That's the suggestion of a new study finding
that overweight children consume 65 percent more of the calorie-laden juices
than thinner kids.
"Parents think that because fruit juices are
natural that they are a healthy drink, so they don't put a limit on how much
their children consume," says study author Dr. Sarita Dhuper, director of
pediatric cardiology and the pediatric obesity clinic at the Brookdale University
Hospital and Medical Center.
In truth, however, Dhuper says fruit drinks
are a major source of calories on their own. Moreover, she says, their high
sugar content may increase a child's appetite for even greater amounts of
food, thus further contributing to weight gain.
"Our study found that juice consumption is
almost shocking. For some kids, there seems to be no limit to what they can
drink in a given day," says Dhuper, who presented her findings May 3 at the
annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Seattle.
Pediatric nutritionist Pam Birkenfeld agrees with the finding.
"Parents tend to think that because fruit juice
is fat-free and comes from nature, it's OK. But what they often don't realize
is that it is a very concentrated source of calories that generally does
not fill you up, just out," says Birkenfeld, a dietician at Nassau University
Medical Center in East Meadow, N.Y.
Complicating matters further, Birkenfeld says
some parents confuse fruit juice with fruit-flavored drinks -- beverages
that can be even higher in calories and offer even less in the way of vitamins
or other nutrients.
"It's not uncommon to hear parents refer to Kool-Aid or Hawaiian Punch as fruit juice," Birkenfeld says.
While both doctors agree there is room for
some natural fruit juice in a child's diet, they say there can definitely
be too much of a good thing.
"I think it's a matter of awareness. Parents
just don't realize how calorie-laden fruit juices are and how much they contribute
to the problem of childhood obesity, which is really reaching almost epidemic
proportions," Dhuper says.
According to the National Health and Nutrition
Examination Survey, 21 percent to 23 percent of children between the ages
of 6 and 17 are overweight and 9 percent to 13 percent are obese, and many
doctors believe the problem is grossly under-diagnosed.
The new study involved 98 obese children aged
5 to 18, mostly blacks from low-to-middle income inner city families. Both
the children and their parents were interviewed and a detailed food history
was documented, including an average daily consumption of fruit juices.
The food histories were then compared with
those from 80 normal-weight children in the same age group from a similar
ethnic and income background.
Both groups exceeded the juice intake guidelines
set by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is four to six ounces
per day for children aged 1 to 6 and eight to 12 ounces daily for children
aged 7 to 18.
The obese children far exceeded the recommended
limit, consuming an average of 32.1 ounces per day, 65 percent more than
normal-weight children, who drank an average of 19.4 ounces per day.
"In some obese children, juice consumption
went as high as 50 ounces per day. There were just no limits," says Dhuper,
who is convinced the excess juice played a major role in the children's weight
problems. And, she says, it likely plays a significant role in the growing
pediatric obesity problem in the United States today.
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The study calls for parents to dramatically
limit their children's juice consumption to meet the AAP guidelines, and
for pediatricians to incorporate information on the links between fruit juices
and obesity in all well-child visits.
More information
To learn more about childhood obesity, visit the National Institutes of Health. To find more guidelines about juice consumption, go to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
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