Did you know: If your child doesn’t eat well, he or she might not be as healthy as kids that do eat good foods and exercise regularly? I know, my blue collar monocle shattered on the ground as well, but it seems that a lot of people out there think that today’s American children simply aren’t eating as well as they should be. There are plenty of usual suspects for us to blame, from soda to fast food and all of the candy in between, but that will never stop the so-called experts from finding the faults in every wonderful food that we eat until we’re left with just tubes of bland space. The latest target of the healthy nerd brigade? Pizza.
Specifically, kids are eating too much delicious pie, and the kinds that they’re eating are loaded with “saturated fat, more salt and more calories overall,” according to a study conducted by the Illinois Prevention Research Center. Between 2003 and 2010, Lisa Powel and her team surveyed children between the ages of 2 and 19 about their diets, and the results were pretty clear – enough with the pizza, you damn punks.
“Parents should aim to curb pizza consumption, particularly as a snack where it was shown to have the largest adverse impact on children’s [calorie] intake, and they should put their pizza dollars toward healthier brands,” said study co-author Lisa Powel, director of the Illinois Prevention Research Center.
Pizza has become a matter of focus in recent years for researchers who look at the meals children eat, rather than the individual nutrients within them. Studies have found children eat pizza more frequently than adults, and that along with desserts such as cakes and cookies, pizza is one of the foods that are the greatest sources of calories for children. Children consume an average of 136 calories per day from pizza, the new study found. (Via Live Science)
It’s not all bad news, though. The number of calories being crammed into these kids’ faces by pizza alone actually decreased during the study period, but the food’s deliciousness is so damned addictive, and that just means that they’re eating so much more of it. It’s up to parents to focus on the type of pizza being served.
“Given that pizza remains a highly prevalent part of children’s diet, we need to make ‘healthy’ pizza the norm,” Powel said. To make pizza healthier, food producers and restaurants should reduce its saturated fat and salt, and increase its whole grain content, she said.
It’s pretty obvious what is going on here… that goddamned Noid is back again. When will we ever learn to avoid him?