The new Dietary Guidelines were released yesterday. There wasn’t a whole lot of new information, cut added sugars, cut salt to 1,500 mg for about 1/2 the American population (those with high blood pressure and African Americans, including children), cut refined grains – the same stuff I’ve been talking about forever! But I did skim through the 100+ page report and one part I was drawn to was the statistics on the Top 25 Sources of Calories Among Americans Ages 2 Years and Older (NHANES 2005-2006). I was shocked at what I read (although in reality I shouldn’t have been). I included only the top five here and only for children and adolescents. Here are the top 5 food sources where children get their calories from….
1. Grain-based desserts – includes cakes, cookies, pies, cobbler, sweet rolls, pastries, and donuts. This amazes me – especially since none of this food belongs in a child’s daily diet, let alone be the #1 source of calories.
2. Pizza – the #2 source of calories for kids. I guess once a week pizza night is more like 3 times a week pizza night for some families.
3. Soda/energy/sports drinks – this includes sweetened bottled water like vitamin water. Nothing to say – these items shouldn’t even make it into your grocery cart.
4. Yeast Breads – includes white bread or rolls, mixed-grain breads, flavored breads, whole-wheat bread and bagels. OK, this one is reasonable. However, I’m no fool, I know the majority of these calories are from white-refined breads and not whole-grain breads.
5. Chicken and chicken mixed dishes – Yes, we Americans do love our chicken. This chicken includes calories from chicken fingers, nuggets, patties, fried chicken, casseroles and salads. Nothing wrong with baked chicken – low in saturated fat, high protein, filling and tasty. But lay off the fried chicken fingers, nuggets and patties please!
You can get the remaining Top 25 Sources of Calories here:
http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/DietaryGuidelines/2010/PolicyDoc/Chapter2.pdf
Fruit and vegetables? Didn’t even make it on the list and I don’t think it’s 
because they’re low in calories either.
Cookus Interruptus
Wow! Very interesting. I didn’t think to look at it this way. Thanks for the unique look. I would love to use this as a reference. If you’d like some resources for helping kids and families take healthy action, let me know!
It is eye opening isn’t it? Looks like you’re doing some good work yourself. Hopefully, in another 5 years the “Top 5″ list will look very different.