WASHINGTON -- The Department of Agriculture on Thursday issued its first guidelines on how to feed young children a nutritious diet, emphasizing the value of grains, fruits and vegetables.
A soft drink can that illustrates the recommendation that children should "eat less" sugar in their diets has outraged the soda companies, which annually sell an average of 56.1 gallons of soda per person in the United States.The new guidelines are in the form of a pyramid, with grains at the base, fruits and vegetables on a narrower level above, meat at a still narrower level above that, and a soda can at the top. A similar food pyramid for the general population issued in 1992 shows sugar at the top.
The meaning of "less" is not spelled out in the new Food Guide Pyramid for Children, which is intended for 2-to-6-year-olds, or in any of the accompanying literature, but the undersecretary of agriculture for food, nutrition and consumers services, Shirley Watkins, said the department had long held that the most a young child should drink is half a 12-ounce can of soda a day.
Watkins said that any additional source of extra sugar, like sugary cereals, cookies or cupcakes, would put the child over the recommended limit.
According to Agriculture Department statistics, on any given day 37 percent of children 2 to 6 years of age in the United States consume an average of 10 ounces of soda.