As you know, the results of the latest Aladdin report and we knew that from the age of 7 the prevalence of overweight and obesity increases. Well, the aforementioned study also showed the percentage of minors who had eaten pastries for breakfast on the day of data collection, it had been 12 percent (approximately). Pastries for breakfast!
Thus, a priori what strikes me the most is that with all the information we have, we allow ourselves those licenses. Because that amount of schoolchildren who take some kind of industrial pastries, it is important (one eighth of the sample), why fool ourselves. And it is that such foods they contain a lot of sugar; for example a couple of muffins, far exceeds the WHO recommended daily allowance for children (which is about 37 grams).
The Aladino report is developed by the Spanish Agency for Consumption, Food Safety and Nutrition (of the Ministry of Health) through the Naos strategy. The data correspond to the year 2015, and reveal that only 8,7% of girls or boys have NEVER eaten pastries. And when we talk about pastries, We are not just referring to cakes, cupcakes or sugary buns, because "Maria" cookies We can also consider them pastries.
Industrial pastries: consumption beyond what is desirable.
7,8% of kids (according to Aladino) eat these products every day, at some point during the day. And they are foods of low nutritional value, very caloric, and rich not only in sugar as I have mentioned, but also in saturated or trans fat. If you had to give advice regarding the intake of donuts, croissants, etc ... it would be to consume no more than one day a week (at most).
Our palate is attached to many of the unhealthy foods, that's why many times we recommend that you get used to children from babies (without forcing) to different flavors of staple foods; that and a good nutrition education at home or at school, it could make a difference, but it is not everything, because what about advertising?
Well that: what about advertising?
The World Health Organization itself, established in 2015 some recommendations regarding advertising of various food categories. Regarding Category 2: “Pastries, sweet cookies and cakes; other sweet pastry products and mixtures for their preparation: None should be able to be advertised regardless of their content in the items indicated above ”. These items (as we read in The General Nutritionist), are the amount of total and saturated fats, total sugars, added sugars, sweeteners, salt and calories.
What happens is that such recommendations are not binding, so countries could easily ignore them. In our specific case, the food industry has a code called PAOS that aims to "fight" against childhood obesity. Clearly it is insufficient, because seriously? Do we leave the regulation of advertising in the hands of those who produce these products? It is actually a kind of self-regulation focused on marketing techniques, but not on whether the food and / or drinks are nutritionally adequate.
What do you put for breakfast? The cookie myth.
We recently discovered that Breakfast is the most important meal of the day It is not entirely true, and that buns are not recommended, but having a little common sense and allow children to eat based on their appetite. There is a rule that nutritionist Julio Basulto once told me: "Do not offer, do not deny", and it is quite easy to apply. Do not have unhealthy food at home, if you have it and the children ask for it, allow it. But instead of chocolates, ice cream, and cookies, we can fill the pantry with seasonal fruit, toasted bread for the little ones to spread on top of hummus or cheese, dates (if they are large), etc.
And now yes, I clarify the mystery of this cookie, which is coming out everywhere in the post. Julio Basulto himself, explained here According to the ENIDE survey, cookies are in the pastry category, along with fritters, churros, cakes or buns. They have such an amount of total and saturated fat that They are equipped with other foods of the category "pastries"And we believing in those ads in which children take their glass of milk (with very sugary cocoa) and dip half a dozen cookies in it! You cannot say that we have not warned you: cookies are not healthier (they are not even healthier) than a banana or a loaf of bread with oil.
Let's not mistreat the health of the little ones: Let's start by reducing the amount of pastries, and increasing the amount of basic productsThose who do not need to be advertised so that we all know that they are healthy.
Images - Petr Kratochvil, Midori