We Can No Longer Pretend Juice Is Good for Babies
Liquid candy juice. Sure, it has a little more vitamins than an average can of cola , but it also has more sugar . Your days of pretending to be healthy are over: The American Academy of Pediatricians finally found the courage to tell us to stop juicing babies .
It seems, as it were, something like. “It is optimal to avoid juice entirely in infants under 1 year of age,” writes the AAP in its new juice guidelines . You get the feeling that they don’t think the parents will listen. Juice has already been banned for babies under 6 months old (who must get all of their nutrition from breast milk or formula), and they have reduced the amount they recommend for older babies. They now say that four ounces a day is enough for a one year old, or eight ounces (that’s one pathetic cup) for kids seven and older.
As harsh as these new rules seem, they make sense. There is no nutritional reason to give juice to children: it’s just sugar and water. If you want to feed them fruit, feed them real fruit , which contains fiber and other nutrients that juice won’t leave behind. And if you want to moisturize them, stick to water for everyday use and Pedialyte for medical: Parents sometimes give juice to kids with diarrhea, but the sugar in the juice (and sports drinks, for that matter) can make the diarrhea worse.
What about this favorite tactic when parents aren’t having fun everywhere – watering the juice? Because of this, it has less sugar, which means it looks less like candy in terms of your child’s diet. However, their teeth may not notice the difference: The AAP notes that children who drink juice all day tend to develop tooth decay, and there is no evidence that diluted juice leads to less tooth decay.
So the bottom line is: If you want to give your kids something fruity and wholesome, give them fruit. If you want to treat them, juice can be that treat. But we can no longer pretend that they are the same thing.