Why do people give their kids juice?
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Anonymous
| Good grief. Clearly all of you "my kids don't get juice" posters all have very young kids. Wait until they're teenagers--you won't give a shit if they're drinking 2 gallons of OJ every day. Bigger battles, seriously. |
Anonymous
| I never gave my first two kids juice when they were little but my third one drinks what we all now drink which is water with a splash of 100% pomegranate juice. (Bolthouse Farms from Whole Foods) Even just 1/2 an ounce in 8oz of water turns the water bright pink. And it tastes great without being particularly sweet. |
Anonymous
| why does juice help with constipation? i know fruit does because of the fiber, but i've never understood why juice does because i thought sugar had the opposite effect. yes, i could google it, but i am hoping that a mom will help me out. |
Anonymous
+1 You'll just be happy if their drinks are non-alcoholic! |
Anonymous
Actually you should be giving him butter, eggs, cheese, whole milk. Not empty sugar calories. He needs the fat for brain development. |
Anonymous
I think prune juice helps because of the fiber in it. I am not so sure about filtered apple juice. OJ with pulp might work. |
Anonymous
| I didn't give my kids juice when they were babies. Now as pre-teens they have the occasional juice. They help themselves when they want it. It isn't a problem. They mostly guzzle glasses of water. I don't know many kids that drink plain water like my kids do. |
Anonymous
For real. My mom has been a registered dietitian for 30 years. I mentioned these anti juice threads to her and she thinks you juice nazis are all INSANE. Growing up I remember we could not have chips, cookies, candy, sugary cereal, or things like Sunny D or capri sun but we could have 100% juice anytime we wanted. I love how people treat juice as the equivalent of a drink with added sugar. A good friend is anti-juice but served sugar filled lemonade at a birthday party. What? I think it is wonderful if your child is thrilled with just water but a little bit of juice now and then (my son drinks some v8 fusion maybe once a day but probably has water #1 then milk, then juice) is not going to kill you. When your kids are school-aged you will be happy when your kid wants 100% juice instead of gatorade or coke or other crap that has absolutely NO vitamins in it. |
Anonymous
He eats all of this things! Still very underweight though. |
Anonymous
5th %ile poster, my son is under the 1st %ile BMI and although we look at him and cringe sometimes at how thin he is, we just go with it. When he was younger, our ped wanted us to try to fatten him up, but now that he's 2, we figure that's just his body type and that to make a big deal out of food could lead to worse eating issues down the road. We do not give him juice. I hear you about being concerned though. I actually have a child whose BMI is at the 93rd %ile and it's worrying to have kids at opposite ends of the spectrum! |
Anonymous
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I'm another juice denier, though I'm not as dogmatic/judgmental as some of the PPs, and DD will drink it at parties/in school. She's almost 3, and she's consistently at the top of the weight chart, so she doesn't need the extra calories. She'll gladly eat fresh fruit, enjoying the benefits of delicious taste, vitamins, and all the fiber in the pulp and skin that juice lacks.
Despite all this, my mom insists that we're horrible to deprive her of the essential nutrients in OJ, which she served me every day growing up. I think that for her generation (she's in her 70s), juice was a way to get nutrition before such a wide variety of fruit was available year-round. To her own mother, a poor immigrant, it must have felt like a luxury and a privilege. To some extent, I think she reads my statement that it's a bad health habit as an indictment of her parenting -- I mean, I know it's not a big deal, and she was doing what conventional wisdom advised at the time. As many times as I've reviewed the arguments that dentists and doctors make about eschewing juice in favor of fruit, she pushes back that it "isn't fair," and we're needlessly "mean." (Who sounds like the 2 yo now??) |
Anonymous
| Several of the pediatricians in the practice I use say juice is ok....everything in moderation! |
Anonymous
Jeez, defensive much? It's a fair question from someone who clearly knows that juice is just concentrated sugar, nothing more and nothing less. If her kid is happy with water, great! Most kids aren't, but why try to undo a healthier habit? |
Anonymous
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I do give my 18 month old orange juice only. She loves it and she is difficult about drinking water so I give her OJ probably once a day. I dont want her to dehydrate in this weather. I water down the juice, though -- 1/2 juice, 1/2 water.
I know juice is sugar, but isn't fruit too? and I do not deny my child fruit.... That being said, I only give her pure OJ, I dont do those other apple juices, etc. |
Anonymous
I agreee. |