If we are what we eat, then American kids
are Fritos. That’s just one of the major findings from the new USDA
Dietary Guidelines. Fries and chips are the only “vegetables” on the
list of top 25 calorie sources; fruit juice is the sole “fruit” to make
the leaderboard.
The prevalence of these foods plays a big
role in the childhood-obesity epidemic, which affects far more than our
children’s waist sizes. Many chronic conditions are on the rise among
kids, including asthma, allergies, diabetes, and attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). And all of these conditions have been
linked to what kids eat. Improving children’s diets in the following
three areas that were addressed in the report would go a long way toward
helping our kids stay healthy:
Go low when it comes to salt. Most
kids over 2 consume too much sodium, which can lead to high blood
pressure. White bread is kids’ biggest source of salt because they eat
so much of it. Excess sodium is also hidden in many processed, frozen,
and restaurant foods. The fix: Go with low-sodium whole
grains when choosing bread. Eat at home more often, and choose fresh
foods over frozen or processed products.
Get off the SoFAS! This
acronym may be the next buzzword in the childhood obesity discussion.
SoFAS—“solid fats and added sugars”—make up a whopping 35 percent of our
calories and have almost no nutritional value. These unhealthy fats,
which are solid at room temperature, are found mostly in butter, stick
margarine, and red meat. That means they’re in many children’s-menu
staples: pizza, hot dogs, bacon, French fries, and desserts. The fix: Whenever possible, avoid these foods and use oils to replace solid fats when cooking.
Watch the added sugars. Sugars
are healthy in whole foods like fruits and milk because these foods
also contain nutrients that signal the body to use the sugar correctly.
But when they are added to nutritionally empty foods (like many
desserts), the natural process is thrown off. The fix:Make
sweets an occasional treat in your family. Most important: View these
findings as a road map to dietary change. Your children’s health depends
on it.
