All-Natural Fruit Juices Aren't Healthy

Preschoolers who are already on the heavy side and drink one to two sweet drinks a day might be at greater risk of becoming obese. Some of these sweet drinks include Kool-Aid with sugar and all-natural apple juice. This finding might come as a surprise to parents who make a point of buying fruit drinks without added sugars for their children.

Nutritionists and the new U.S. dietary guidelines both agree on the same recommendation: it is better to eat whole fresh fruit than to consume fruit juice.

Research revealed that 3 and 4 year olds who carried extra weight and consumed one to two sweet drinks a day were at double the risk of becoming seriously overweight one year later.

In order to study the effects of sweet drinks researchers followed over 10,000 Missouri children who were divided into three groups: normal and underweight, those at risk of becoming overweight and those who were already overweight.

Some of the components of the study included comparing children's heights and weights and parents' reports of what their children ate and drank over the course of a four week period.

The study uncovered a link between sweet drinks and being overweight among all three weight categories of the participants, however the statistics weren't as significant for those children who fell into the normal and underweight category.

Other factors such as ethnicity, birth weight and high-fat diets didn't change any of the effects of sweet drinks.

Pediatrics