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Nutrition issues
Many children are not eating enough fruits and vegetables.
Children are eating more energy dense foods than they should and not enough fruits and vegetables…
A few alarming statistics:
- Less than 10% of 4-8 year old children in Australia eat the recommended number of vegetable serves each day.
- 20% of 1-4 year old children in Canada consume more energy than they need.
- Australian children aged 2-5 years consume around 30-35% of their total energy from energy dense foods that are high in saturated fat, sugar or salt such as biscuits/cookies, cakes, lollies/candy, chocolate and fried foods.
- Children and adolescents from the United States consume 12% of their energy from fast foods and 30% eat fast foods on any given day.
- In Mexico, by the age of 9 months, approximately 75% of children consume sweets, 50% consume fruit, and 25% consume vegetables.
- In Mexico over 60% of children consume sugar sweetened beverages at the age of 12 months and almost 80% by 2 years of age.
Conversation starter
- What are the statistics in your country?
- Where would you look to find some of these statistics?
This article is from the online course:
Preventing Childhood Obesity: an Early Start to Healthy Living
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This article is from the free online
Preventing Childhood Obesity: an Early Start to Healthy Living
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