Parents Shouldn’t Be Giving Their Toddlers Fruit Juices: Here’s Why

We’re all of the opinion that juices are healthy, especially today in a world where cold pressed juice diets are all the rage. However, parents may want to stop sort of sharing their juices with their toddlers. According to the American Academy of Paediatrics, children should not be drinking fruit juices in their first year.

No Nutritional Benefit

According to the Academy, giving juices to children under one have as no nutritional benefit, but conversely may put the child in danger of tooth cavities and obesity.

Dr Steven A Abrams, the chairman of the Department of Paediatrics at Dell Medical School at the university od f Texas said “We couldn’t really see any reason why juice was still part of the potential recommendation for 6- to 12-month-old kids.”

“We recommend breastfeeding or formula in that age group, and there really isn’t any need or beneficial role for juice, so we kind of made that adjustment. “It is the first change to the academy’s fruit juice recommendations since 2001.It wasn’t “some magical new science” that inspired the alteration, noted Abrams, but rather “this (guideline) hadn’t been looked at in a long time, so we thought it was time to take a close look.”

However, the Academy has also added that fresh juice can be part of a healthy diet for children above the ages of one, but advise parents to limit it to 4 ounces a day.

Rather than juice, the Academyis suggesting that their parents give their children whole fruits as they includes fibre and other nutrients lost while juicing.