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 What kids drink at 5 could affect weight at 15
Parents may be setting their children up for weight problems simply by allowing them to drink sweetened drinks daily.Sweetened beverage intake, such as sodas, sport drinks and even fruit juices starting at age 5 years was linked to more body fat accumulation. Higher body fat during the teen years has been tied to long-term overweight and other health problems such as diabetes and later heart disease.
Children who drank two or more sweetened drinks including fruit juice had higher percentages of body fat, weighed more, and were more likely to be overweight than those who drank lesser amounts of such beverages.
Therefore researchers concluded that caregivers of young children should substitute sweetened drinks with reduced-fat milk and water to prevent obesity in youth.
Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, October 2009.
If you are a patient of our office you will know how I feel about juices; they aren’t natural! Certainly they may come from fruit but where in nature to do you find trees producing glasses of OJ ready to be picked and drank down? You don’t! Nature made fruit in its perfect package already to eat. Have you thought how many oranges it takes to make a glass of juice? Would you be able to eat 4-5 oranges in a single sitting? In fact, a glass of orange juice has as many grams of sugar as a glass of soda pop! I also don’t like homemade vegetable juice that is made from mostly carrots and apples. This as well is too high in sugar. If you make vegetable juice at home make it from mostly green vegetables. Take this into consideration when you think that juices are health foods.
Sodas, sport drinks, and juices are not health foods. They raise our glucose levels, which raise our insulin levels, which from there can cause a whole snowball of events: elevated cholesterol, elevated triglycerides, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Get the juices and artificial drinks out of the home. Our children need pure filtered high quality H2O. Save these sweetened drinks for treats only.
Bottoms up!
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