Establishing healthy eating habits for our children can cause tremendous anxiety for parents. We know that ideally, our young children should eat plenty of fruits and vegetables along with healthy whole grains and lean protein. We also know this can be challenging for a number of reasons, from production costs to our kids’ favorite thing to do with all those veggies is throw them on the floor while screaming. Americans aren’t the only ones struggling with this issue. A new study from University College London (UCL) published in the European Journal of Nutrition found that British young children get around half of their calories from ultra-processed foods (UPF), with this figure rising to 59% of children by age seven.
The study analyzed 3-day food diaries of 2,591 children aged 21 months to seven years born in the UK between 2007 and 2008. The study found a range of eating habits in children: For young children, their UPF comprised 28% to 69% of their caloric intake, with an average of 47%. By age 7, average UPF intake is 59%. The more UPF young children eat, the greater their intake of UPF by age 7, said senior study author Dr. Clare Llewellyn of the Institute of Epidemiology and Health at University College London. of food choices as our children are likely to enter their senior years.
But it’s important to clarify what constitutes processed or ultra-processed food. To do this, the researchers used the NOVA system endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health organizations, but it is worth noting that there is fierce debate among experts about how to classify foods in this way. NOVA divides foods into four categories: unprocessed and minimally processed; processed cooking ingredients; processed; and ultra-processed.
Unprocessed foods are foods that come straight from the source. Unprocessed vegetables, fruits and meats any The change was not processed. If you dry, ferment, pasteurize or freeze food, as long as you don’t add anything like salt or sugar, that’s minimally Processed food. Clean foods are also considered “minimally processed.”
Processed cooking ingredients are foods you rarely eat on their own and are extracted from natural foods by pressing, grinding, crushing, pulverizing and refining them. This includes things like olive oil, sugar, cream, and salt.
Processed foods can be a bit surprising to some people. Homemade bread? Processed. Cheese—not even Cheez Wiz or American cheese, but an award-winning organic cheddar? Processed. bacon? Processed. Canned beans? Processed. Basically, if you add a processed cooking ingredient to an unprocessed or minimally processed food, it is considered processed.
When people think of “processed foods,” they probably think of UPF. These are frozen pizza, store-bought donuts, and soda. They are primarily made from ingredients derived from unprocessed foods and are often produced in factories. But this does not must Meaning they are completely unhealthy. Flavored yogurt, cereal, sliced bread (including whole wheat, sprouted and expensive bread) some of us buy Because we want to be healthy), canned soup is considered UPF and has many nutritional benefits. However, most of these foods contain more than recommended amounts of sugar and salt.
“Ultra-processed foods are not all bad for our health, and the foods young children in our study typically eat are considered very healthy,” co-author Lana Conway said in a statement. “However, some whole grain cereals and flavored yoghurts are high in added sugar and salt, and our study found that young children who eat more ultra-processed foods also consume more of these ingredients.”
Of course, it’s not just a matter of lazy parenting or not knowing better. There can be many barriers to obtaining minimally processed foods. Healthy foods are usually more expensive than UPF. A pint of strawberries costs a lot more per serving than a box of Cheerios, not to mention that fresh produce doesn’t last as long and most Brits, like most Americans, only go grocery shopping once a week. There’s also the issue of food deserts, where even minimally processed foods are hard to come by: around 1.2 million Britons live in such deserts, according to the University of Sheffield. (That number jumps to about 54 million in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.)
So what to do with this information? Of course, it’s important to realize that the decisions we make for our children will impact them throughout their lives. Because UPF is associated with poorer health, including higher rates of type 2 diabetes, it’s important to acknowledge that a diet rich in minimally processed foods will ultimately benefit them. But it’s also important to recognize that completely eliminating UPF from anyone’s diet may not be realistic in the 21st century, at least until public policies can help all citizens have access to the healthiest, most wholesome foods.
But eliminating UPF entirely isn’t strictly necessary for health either: We’re pretty sure that giving your 3-year-old whole-wheat toast for breakfast isn’t going to be the difference between a healthy life and an unhealthy one. In other words, be mindful of added sugars and salts, provide you with healthy foods when possible, and do your best with the resources you have.
