Sweet Drinks And Your Kids
Children should avoid soft or fizzy drinks are these drinks are usually high in sugar, and have limited nutritional value. Likewise cordial, flavoured mineral water, sports drinks and fruit juice can lead to a higher incidence of tooth decay and can lead to excess weight gain. Children should instead drink plenty of water. Encourage your children to drink water by giving them a drink bottle to take to school that can be refilled.
Sweet drinks include all fruit juices, soft drinks, energy drinks, cordials, flavoured mineral waters and sports drinks either bought or home-made.
Studies has shown that children who drink tap water have less tooth decay than children who drink bottled water.
Why limit juice?
Fruit juices contain sugars that are found naturally in fresh fruits, but become very concentrated when made into juice.
As juice comes from fresh fruit and vegetables, it is easy to believe it is a natural, healthy food, full of vitamins. For example, children only need half an orange to get their daily requirement of vitamin C – but it takes three or four oranges to make one glass of juice.
Encourage your children to eat fresh fruit and vegetables instead of juice. This will:
- Supply fibre to the diet and help prevent constipation
- Satisfy their appetite for longer, helping to prevent over-eating
- Help with skills such as peeling and chewing
- Teach about different textures, colour and tastes
- Provide a convenient, healthy and nourishing option for snacks.
Which milk should I give my child?
When children are over five years, either skim or reduced fat milk and dairy products can be used.
What happens when children drink too many sweet drinks?
Sweet drinks are high in energy and contain very little nutritional value towards your child’s diet. Regular intake of sweet drinks may lead towards energy imbalance and excess weight gain.
Tooth decay
Children who have sweet drinks such as cordial, soft drink and juice regularly, are at a higher risk of tooth decay.
Small appetite and picky eating
Sweet drinks are full of energy and can fill children up making them less hungry for other foods. Most sweet drinks are poor sources of other valuable nutrients and, for picky eaters, stopping or limiting sweet drinks is a helpful way to encourage appetite for other foods. Problems such as iron deficiency anaemia, and failure to thrive may occur in infants and toddlers who replace foods such as breast milk, formula or solids with sweet drinks.
Change in bowel habits
Young children may have problems digesting some of the sugars in sweet drinks, and the results can be loose bowel actions and even diarrhoea. This may affect growth if energy and nutrients are lost from the body. When sweet drinks are removed from a child’s diet, loose bowel actions may improve.
How do I reduce sweet drinks?
Changing your child’s diet can be a challenge, but remember young children can only eat or drink what is given to them. Avoid keeping sweet drinks in the house and try not to drink them yourself. If your child already has sweet drinks regularly, or if you have older children who are used to having sweet drinks available, start to reduce the number of drinks per day and limit the amounts you buy. Offer the remaining drinks watered down, until you can stop them. Children may be upset at first but will get used to it if you continue. Be patient. This may take time, particularly if your child is in the habit of wanting juice or cordial whenever they are thirsty or hungry.
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