Making healthy food and other habits the norm for kids is important (yes, sometimes challenging), but it seems a little silly when big claims are made that pizza is the reason the youth of today might have health issues.
How about we feed them less pizza?
A new study out of the University of Illinois at Chicago found that on any given day in the United States in 2009-2010, one in five young children and nearly one in four teens ate pizza for a meal or snack.
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“Given that pizza remains a highly prevalent part of children’s diet, we need to make healthy pizza the norm,” said study author Lisa Powell, a professor of health policy and administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “Efforts by food producers and restaurants to improve the nutrient content of pizza, in particular by reducing its saturated fat and sodium [salt] content and increasing its whole-grain content, could have quite broad reach in terms of improving children’s diets,” Powell said.
CBS News reported:
On the days children ate pizza, they consumed 84 more calories, 3 grams more saturated fat and 134 milligrams more sodium than average, the investigators found. Teens took in an extra 230 calories, 5 grams saturated fat and 484 mg sodium on pizza days.
Yes, pizza is an easy option, both at home and at school, and pizza parties are a norm for kids. But is a kid’s preference for pizza this unavoidable dilemma or are people just not putting enough effort into looking for healthier options? It seems like the solution could be pretty simple.
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“There’s often a world of difference between doing what’s right and doing what’s easy,” said Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa in Canada. “By leaning on pizza because we can, we’re normalizing a culture of convenience that isn’t in our children’s or their health’s best interest.”
[Photo from Flickr user Marcel Tarnogorski]