Authors: Kathryn Mueller
Fad diets have taken the U.S. by storm: Paleo, Mediterranean, the “Fast Diet” – even Gwyneth Paltrow has a new cookbook. Just as quickly as one diet is “out,” another diet emerges to take its place. With so many options, celebrity endorsements and websites full of misinformation, how can parents know which diets are safe – especially for kids?
Celia Framson, MPH, RD, CD, and Mary Jones Verbovski, MS, RD, CD, clinical pediatric dietitians at Seattle Children’s Hospital encourage parents to keep kids in mind when evaluating a potential diet.
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Authors: Kathryn Mueller
For parents of little ones, the task of reinforcing healthy habits around the dinner table can cause a bit of apprehension: What foods are best? How do I get my kids to eat their veggies? How much is too much? Parents can find it hard to know if they’re encouraging healthy eating habits in their young children.
Mollie Grow, MD, MPH, pediatrician at Seattle Children’s Hospital – and the mother of two young girls – says that the old adage “you are what you eat” is pretty spot-on, even more so for young children whose growing minds and bodies depend on a number of different nutrients.
Nutritional recommendations have changed over time, but Grow says we now know the most we’ve ever known about nutrition.
“We’ve learned that fresh foods – especially fruits and vegetables – and variety in our diets provides the best nutrients our bodies need for optimal growth and performance,” she says. “All the different parts of our foods work together. For example, iron is needed for learning, calcium and vitamin D are needed for bone growth, vitamin B12 helps the blood grow and vitamin C helps the immune system and repairs soft tissues.”
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Authors: Mary Guiden
Your water bottle may have a BPA-free label, and you try to avoid cooking food in plastic containers. But you may still be exposed to chemicals in the food you eat, even if you’re eating an organic diet and your meals are cooked and stored in non-plastic containers, according to a study published February 27 in the Nature Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.
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Authors: Suzan Mazor, MD
We all want our kids to lead vibrant, active lives, because childhood is such a dynamic time of discovery and participation.
But there are healthy – and unhealthy – ways to ensure that this happens.
One of my concerns right now is that caffeine is playing an unhealthy role in the diets of too many children and adolescents. Teens, for example, shouldn’t consume more than 100 mg of caffeine per day. (The recommended caffeine ceiling for adults is about 400 mg per day.)
Unfortunately, there’s a problem with certain energy drinks that exceed the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) mandated limit of 71 mg of caffeine for a 12-ounce soda.
Energy drinks are sold as nutritional supplements, so they’re not regulated as foods. As a result, their labels often don’t reveal the exact amount of caffeine in each drink. And, in addition to caffeine, energy drinks may contain other stimulants, such as taurine and guarana, a caffeine containing plant.
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Authors: Mary Guiden
Buy one, get one for 1 cent. Be a hot tamale, eat a hot tamale. Try our new salted carmel cake pop.
We see slogans like these on billboards and at restaurants on a daily basis. Would a nutrition-labeling regulation that requires restaurants to post calorie counts help spur a reduction in the use of these slogans, which are known as “barriers to healthful eating?” That’s what a research team, led by Brian Saelens, PhD, of Seattle Children’s Research Institute, set out to find. The study, “Nutrition-labeling regulation impacts on restaurant environments,” is published this week in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
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Authors: Kathy Porada
“Food is your medicine – hence let your medicine be your food” – Hippocrates, circa 400 BC
Hospitals are places where healing and wellness are promoted, yet the food and drink that are served at them may not always be the healthiest options for patients, their families and staff. Seattle Children’s is tackling this challenge head on.
Today, Children’s announced the launch of Mission: Nutrition – a new initiative aimed at improving the nutritional quality of the food and drinks served at all Children’s properties. Improving our nutritional offerings will happen in several phases over time. Here’s a look at phase one improvements, some of which are already underway:
- Deep-fat fried foods are no longer offered in the hospital’s cafeteria. Instead, french fries, onion rings, fish fillets, egg rolls, empanadas and other traditionally deep-fat-fried foods are now baked.
- Beginning this month, all sugar-sweetened beverages in cafeterias, vending machines and gift shops will be removed – one of the more sweeping changes of the initiative.
- Wild salmon with tomato pesto, cod fillet and country baked steak have been added to the cafeteria’s rotating menu as healthy alternatives.
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Authors: On the Pulse
A new study says “yes.”
University of Minnesota researchers interviewed the parents of 60 youth basketball players and found that the young athletes commonly had sweets, such as candy, ice cream and doughnuts; pizza; hot dogs; salty snacks, including chips, nachos and cheese puff and soda and sports drinks.
The parents also reported frequent visits to fast-food restaurants when their children were playing sports.
And, even though the parents agreed that these foods and beverages are unhealthy, they said rushing to practices and games made them rely more on these types of products due to their convenience. Read full post »
