TORONTO - Contrary to what some people believe, drinking pure fruit juice does not contribute to weight gain among young children -- and it may even help to keep them at a healthy weight, a U.S. study suggests.
The research abstract, presented Tuesday at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Toronto, analyzed the dietary intake of 3,618 children aged two to 11 using data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
"We did not find a relationship between 100 per cent juice consumption and overweight among children," said principal investigator Dr. Theresa Nicklas, a pediatric nutrition specialist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
"Even among the children who consumed the most juice, we found no association at all with the children being overweight or at risk for overweight," said Nicklas, noting that the children drank an average of about 120 millilitres of pure juice per day, an amount in keeping with recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Although some children (13 per cent) drank larger amounts of juice (350 ml or more per day), their increased consumption was not linked to packing on excess pounds, concluded the study.
In fact, children aged two to three who drank the most juice were nearly three times less likely to be overweight than children who drank no juice at all.
The study was designed by Nicklas and funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Juice Products Association. She said the study design and implementation was not influenced by the juice industry.
Nicklas was startled to find that 57 per cent of American children aged two to 11 drink no juice at all, especially in light of the fact that dietary guidelines recommend that at least one daily fruit serving should come from 100 per cent fruit juice.
"So really the weight of scientific evidence is in showing there is no association between weight status and 100 per cent juice consumption," Nicklas said in an interview, noting that the Baylor-led research is the eighth large study to confirm that finding.
Nicklas said she was surprised to find that children who drank pure juice did not use the beverage to replace milk; they also were more likely to eat more whole fruits than non-juice drinkers.
The study found that two-to 11-year-olds who drank any amount of 100 per cent juice also ate a diet lower in sodium, added sugars, and total fat and saturated fat.
"If you look at just their overall diet, kids that consume 100 per cent juice, it's a valuable contributor of nutrients in kids' diets compared to kids that do not consume juice," she said. "Kids who consume 100 per cent juice, they consume a significantly higher intake of vitamin C, potassium, riboflavin, magnesium and folate compared to non-consumers."
"The take-home message to pediatricians . . . and parents is if you are concerned about kids being overweight, what you need to do is look at the amount of total calories a child is taking in and then just look at their diet and find out where the largest amount of total calories are coming from," she said.
"It's equally important to look at physical activity."
Toronto nutrition expert Dr. David Jenkins said recent studies have suggested that pure fruit juices are not the culprits they were once thought to be in terms of weight gain, unlike high-calorie soft drinks, which have been pinpointed as waistline expanders.
"I'm not altogether sure that obesity is simply a matter of calories. I think that there are many other factors that influence whether people get fat or not," said Jenkins, advising that a healthy diet should include whole fruit, not just juice.
Nicklas agreed that trying to keep kids at a healthy weight is a complex problem, she said.
"There's no simple solution to the childhood obesity problem and it's not a result of a single food and it's not a result of a single nutrient. It may even be a combination of different eating patterns of individuals in addition to physical activity."
