Another Real Truth Behind Childhood Obesity

Concerns about childhood obesity have forced reluctant food companies to alter the nutritional content of their products to make them look healthier. They take out the trans fats, reduce the sugars, and add artificial sweeteners and fiber. No, they are not claiming that the reformulated products are health foods; what they do say is that the new products are better options.Whether a better junk food will really make people healthier is a hypothesis that has yet to be tested, but it does do one thing. It makes the product a lot easier to sell as good for your children.

As examples, consider whole grain Cocoa Puffs, trans fat-free snack chips, and artificially sweetened breakfast cereals. Despite the evident flaws in this approach, the IOM committee adopted it to some extent. It divided junk foods into two Tiers based on long lists of nutritional standards. Tier 1 foods are real foods (fruits, vegetables, grains, etc) as well as snack foods and beverages that do not exceed certain limits on calories (200 per serving), fat (35 percent of calories), saturated fat (less than 10 percent of calories), trans fat (basically none), sugars (35 percent of calories), sodium (200 mg or less), and caffeine (also basically none). Tier 2 foods, which are allowed for high school students after school, are pretty much the same except that those kids get to drink artificially sweetened sodas.

The most eyebrow-raising standard is that for sugars. Doesn't 35 percent of calories seem like a lot? Well, soft drinks contain 100 percent of calories from sugars and all are excluded by this criterion. But then there are the exceptions. Fruits and fruit juices qualify regardless of their sugar content (good, because these foods contain plenty of useful nutrients).

But the IOM gives dairy foods a big break. Low-fat milks can contain up to 22 grams of sugars (88 calories worth) in 8 ounces, and low-fat yogurt can contain up to 30 grams (120 calories) in 8 ounces. These greatly exceed the 35 percent cutpoint. The rationale for the dairy product exception is that these foods are good sources of calcium. The IOM committee wistfully says that it is "mindful of the positive efforts of some states and school districts, sometimes working together with the dairy industry, to successfully develop products lower in added sugars." One can hope. Attribute this exception to brilliant, unrelenting lobbying by dairy trade groups to convince nutritionists that dairy foods are the best, if not only, source of calcium (an issue I discuss in "Food Politics" and in "What to Eat".)