Unhealthy Children’s Snacks You Might Miss
Parents worried about their babies' diets might be unaware of a whole host of unhealthy foods and eating habits, a US child nutritionist is warning.
Dr Dina Rose, PhD, uses her blog Itsnotaboutnutrition.squarespace.com to advise parents that some foods are not as healthy as they might seem.
She provides a top 10 of “dangerous foods” for young children which often pass under parent's fatty and sugary food radar and should only be given to children sparingly.
Dr Rose also warns that these foods hinder parents in introducing new, healthier foods to fussy children's diets, as they are uniformly sweet or bland tasting and have similar soft, liquid, chewy or crunchy textures.
It's hard to disagree with her reasoning that if you feed your babies sweet things, even fruit juice, they will develop a sweet tooth for the rest of their lives.
She advises that meal times and how children eat are very important to their health.
Number one on the list is cheese. Dr Rose says: "Many experts believe that cheese is the leading source of saturated fat in the American diet."
Next is sweetened yoghurt, which has about half as much sugar as normal fizzy drink.
Supposedly 'healthy' crunchy snacks like pretzels, cheese biscuits and vegetable crisps are third on the list, as they have little nutritional value and are usually full of salt
Dr Rose calls Bagels and cream cheese a "snacking minefield." A plain bagel has 290 calories without cream cheese. Two ounces (56 grams) of cream cheese adds 200 calories more to a total of 490 calories, almost half a toddler's recommended daily intake.
Chocolate milk is more chocolate than milk to Dr Rose. Even low fat chocolate milk drinks contain more sugar than a chocolate bar.
