How Good are Fruit Juices for Kids
By: Sanjay Shah, M.D.
Juices are refreshing drinks that practically everybody likes. The American Cancer Society recommends five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. Juices are advertised for their wonderful nutritive values including vitamins and calcium in fortified orange juices. Are juices that good? The truth is too much of something that is good is not necessarily good.
Following are the down sides of fruit juices and fruit drinks:
1. Fruit juices are not equivalent to fruits. They don’t have the pulp and fiber content of the fruits which is nutritionally very important.
2. Fruit drinks and fruit punches have only small amounts of fruit juice, the rest is artificial flavor.
3. Fruit juices have a lot of calories and they don’t fill you up. If a one-year-old fills himself up with fruit juices or any sweetened drink, he will not be hungry enough to eat other nutritive solids.
4. All drinks, including fruit juices have no iron at all. Children who drink a lot of juices or milk will not eat enough solids to get the iron needed to build up blood and muscles.
5. Children who carry a milk or juice bottle or sippy cup around and drink from it every few minutes are destined to have cavities of their front upper teeth known as baby bottle cavities. If they lose their primary teeth too early, the permanent teeth are not aligned correctly. Children who take a bottle or a sippy cup to bed with them have the same problem.
6. Children who drink a lot of juices, milk, and sodas tend to be overweight too.