100% fruit juice associated with weight gain in children and adults, study finds
100% fruit juice associated with weight gain in children and adults, study finds
Drinking a glass or more of 100% fruit juice daily is associated with a small weight gain in children and adults, according to a new analysis.
Drinking one glass or more of 100% fruit juice each day is associated with weight gain in children and adults, according to a new analysis of 42 previous studies.
The research, published Tuesday in JAMA Pediatrics, found a positive association between drinking 100% fruit juice and BMI — a calculation that takes into account weight and height — among kids. It also found an association between daily consumption of 100% fruit juice with weight gain among adults.
100% fruit juice was defined as fruit juices with no added sugar.
This seems like it would be really obvious, no?
If you are simply buying fruit juices at the store you are getting zero to virtually zero fiber. So you are getting a bunch of calories but without feeling any sense of fullness that you would get if you instead just ate the fruit.
Fruit is healthy but you are much better off just eating the fruit and drinking water. If you really want to drink the fruit juice you should just blend the fruit so that you are also getting all the pulp. The fiber is excellent for you and will help prevent you from turning all that juice into "empty" calories.
It's obvious to anyone who has thought about it, yes. Unfortunately there's a larger than you expect percentage of people out there who just think "fruit healthy" and that's where the thought ends
It doesn't help that government recommendations have been based on either terrible research or straight up from lobbying groups for so many decades.
The old food pyramid was insane. Nuts, beans, and red meat all being lumped in the protein category, while all fats and sweets were considered the same. Sugar was just considered a carbohydrate, whether it came from fruits or from soda (high fructose corn syrup). The categories were displayed and expressed as hard lines and there was no nuance at all. Not to mention bread, cereal, rice, pasta all being the largest category... and an entire category for just milk-based items.
For many people the government recommendation is just taken at face value, often just because that is what they're taught in school.
Unfortunately there’s a larger than you expect percentage of people out there who just think “fruit healthy” and that’s where the thought ends
Totally fair point. As usual I tend to overestimate the general public.
I think children are generally taught "eat your fruits and vegetables". It should not be permitted to target children with fruit-branded junk food and mis-marketing
One of my friends was staying with me for a few days. She bought 2 half gallons of apple juice (buy one, get one) and she was saying how much she loved it, how healthy it was, and she switched over from soda a while ago. I commented that it's not really healthy per se because it still contains nearly as much sugar as soda, she didn't disagree but still said that drinking apple juice just seems healthier since it's from a fruit.
Yes you’d think that wouldn’t include researchers who do research and publish in pediatric journals though.
If you really want to drink the fruit juice you should just blend the fruit so that you are also getting all the pulp.
Thanks for reminding me I need to go to my local taqueria and get an agua fresca o7
this is why, while i love fruit smoothies, i also make sure to also add some granola and/or flax seed for extra fiber.
helps me save on t-p, too!
Haven’t they known this for decades now?
Fruit juice is all the sugar in fruit but without any of the fiber.
Yeah, the US has an education problem. They kind of tell kids about this in school these days but for a bunch of years fruit was just plain sold as good for you. Kids parents were raised going oh don't drink that Fanta here drink this apple juice. When they're far too close to nutritional value for it to matter.
It's another thing they could put a label on might help a few people, it's really effing hard to put a health food label on everything that's not shit though
Yes. Just got back from the pediatrician and the take home handout said (again) not to feed your kid juice as there's little to no nutritional value and a butt load of sugar
For sure every doctor alwayd says BOOF it or Lose it
WATER motherfuckers, water
Watermelon juice? Okay, I’ll give it a try.
Great, now I want a watermelon agua fresca.
I know personally this tragedy all to well. My father used to drink water. He passed away just a few years ago. Then I did my research and learned that over 80% of everyone who has ever died actually drank water at least the day before.
What does that tell you about water?
Big water has been taking us for fools all this time
What plant is a motherfucker, and how much water does it need?
Mother fucking can get really hot and keeping it wet needs much more work on your end
I have a very vivid memory of working with this girl who had a neck so large that it hung down like a bullfrog's sack. I had lost some weight myself and we were discussing nutrition and my high water consumption, and I remember she looks at me very seriously and a little exasperated and says, "I'm eating healthier too. I stopped drinking so much pop and switched entirely to juice."
People really do believe that pure fruit juice is good for your body. I think it's largely due to the average person's inability to understand caloric intake and how to decipher a nutrional chart.
I just check the orange juice I buy. Just generic supermarket branded. 45 calories per 100ml. Coca Cola is 42.
There are people are drinking several litres a day of this shit, on top of all the normal stuff they eat.
There are people are drinking several litres a day of this shit, on top of all the normal stuff they eat.
The study makes it clear that's the problem. The article is trying to spin it into fruit juice being as bad as soda.
I mean it's probably better than soda right?
Most people have zero clue about how nutrition works. It makes sense, educators don't really spend time teaching it. We had the 4 food groups and the food pyramid, both of which tend to favor eating a shitload of bread as your main caloric intake, which has obviously been debunked. We had the great sugar vs fat debate of the 90s. Now people are skeptical of nutrition as a concept and think "oh, fruit juice, that's healthy". Can't really blame people for not knowing everything, but damn, food is important. Garbage in, garbage out.
Precisely. My whole life I was told to stay away from fat and eat my fruits and veggies. I loooove fruits and veggies, but was only recently told they were high in carbs in my 30s. I just assumed they were healthy since that's what I was told my whole life. Kinda sucks since I'm repulsed by seafood and am not a big meat eater (I identify as flexitarian).
The closest thing to formal education about nutrition I received were the now-obsolete posters of the food pyramid randomly plastered around my middle school.
If you have the time and money I highly recommend a nutrition class at your local community college.
Everyone has been on this tangent for years, this isn't exactly news. I think it's worth noting that the problem isn't really this simple. They concentrate the juice and pump it full of "juice" that is really just sugar. If you actually buy real pressed 100% blueberry juice, for example, instead of apple sugar flavored with blueberries, the sugar content is lower. And because you would never actually want to drink 100% blueberry juice because it wouldn't taste how you are expecting, you would water it down. Suddenly you have a glass of juice with 5 grams of sugar instead of 30 grams and you are fine. Additionally, no matter the type of juice, it is nearly always over concentrated because they are trying to boost the sugar content. People should really be watering down any kind of store bought juice.
No one is actually drinking "100% juice", they are drinking a product that resembles the fruit of juice. These companies are not squeezing juice into a bottle, they are concentrating fruit sugars and adding them back into water. The problem is just as much with false advertising as anything. I'm not saying freshly squeezed juice is healthy, but it as sure as shit healthier than the fraud they are selling on the shelves. As with everything, the problem is money. Companies know they will sell more if they say it's juice and then pump it full of extra concentrated fruit sugar.
Edit: I wish more companies sold actual 100% real pressed fruit juice, I would buy it and water it down with soda water. I also wish they were more honest with their labeling about what they are actually doing. Not everything needs to be flawlessly healthy, but we could take steps in the right direction. You should only be able to label something as 100% juice if it actually is squeezed out of the fruit and put in the bottle with no interference and additional processing.
Some of the best drinks I've ever had are pure fresh-squeezed juice.
For example: pomegranate juice pressed by a street vendor? Amazing. Apples from the tree in my mom's yard? Incredible when juiced. Freshly squeezed orange juice? Sign me up.
Relatively few fruits make a juice that's not good straight. Cranberry comes to mind as being too bitter. Lemon is a bit too acidic for most.
Wyman's 100% blueberry juice is 20g sugar per 250ml. Mott's apple juice is 28g for 8 oz/240ml. So blueberry juice is about 2/3 the sugar of apple juice. It's still plenty sweet.
You don't water blueberry juice down because it's not sweet enough. You water it down because 8oz of Mott's apple juice is $1.30 at Walmart, and 8oz of wymans' blueberry juice is $7.30. Blends use apple juice because it's cheap and mild, so you can layer other flavors on top.
Juice isn't bad for you because of the extra apple sugar. It's bad because you removed all the fiber. Fiber promotes sateity.
Upvoted because they are all good points. But I would say, that even these pure juice blends are absolutely concentrating the sugar, and probably using the sweetest varieties they can find. I would put money on it. I've pressed juice myself and it is never as sweet as what they sell you in the store, not even remotely close. The store juice is magnitudes more sweet because they are liars and frauds, full stop. Either way, we should all be watering it down. Unless you're desensitizing your taste of sugar by eating pixy stix every day, most juices are too sweet anyway.
Y'all, the study clearly says it's the calories. People see it as free calories. The article straight up lies about adults too. The study did not find the same link in adults.
Relevant bit from the study-
Among cohort studies in children, each additional serving per day of 100% fruit juice was associated with a 0.03 (95% CI, 0.01-0.05) higher BMI change. Among cohort studies in adults, studies that did not adjust for energy showed greater body weight gain (0.21 kg; 95% CI, 0.15-0.27 kg) than studies that did adjust for energy intake (−0.08 kg; 95% CI, −0.11 to −0.05 kg; P for meta-regression <.001). RCTs in adults found no significant association of assignment to 100% fruit juice with body weight but the CI was wide (MD, −0.53 kg; 95% CI, −1.55 to 0.48 kg).
Give your kids one child serving a day and fiber from elsewhere. Also make sure they get physical activity in. Done. This isn't Fruit Juice=Soda. Adults probably don't get rated as hard because a pint glass of fruit juice is a lot less of their daily intake percentage wise.
Just give them fruit.
I agree, but I'm also tired of sensationalism in nutrition news and then people asking why there's so many fat Americans.
I saw Hank Green talk about this not so long ago. He says he hates how juice is marketed as a 'healthy' option, when in reality, it's just like flat soda.
Like in an average fruit, there is probably less than a glass of juice. We evolved to eat fruit but not to constantly consume copious amounts of the juice. It's too much sugar and your body Will be worse off for it if you subject it to that amount of sugar for too long.
People should just drink water ffs.
A small glass of juice occasionally maybe if you need it for the anti oxidents or vitamins etc. But not daily and certainly not a huge amount of it.
My wife and I occasionally make fresh squeezed orange juice at home... It takes us at least a dozen large oranges to get THREE - 10 to 12 ounce glasses of juice.
It probably takes more oranges than that really but it's been a while since we did it so I can't remember for sure.
I see so many things blamed for weight gain, but nobody ever seems to talk about the fact that nearly everyone is staying inside more. Kids don't go outside to play like they used to. They play video games and watch YouTube instead of riding bikes and climbing trees. Adults too. The human race is becoming increasingly sedentary. The calories catch up way quicker if you aren't doing anything to burn them. And I'm not pointing fingers here. I do it too.
Have you seen the outside they built?
Kids aren't allowed to play outside anymore anywhere but the country.
The trees have been cut down and replaced with tiny puffs of artificial grass. There are no yards, it's all just streets to play in. And the streets are now blasted through at 30mph.
Adults call the cops on children outside just anywhere but their own front lawn. There is nowhere where it is free to be, and kids aren't exactly flush with cash.
I live in a housing development without a tree in sight. There were kids out running around all over the place all summer long. Never saw anyone complaining about it either.
Easy to claim everyone is staying inside if you’re inside not seeing it or when it’s either extreme freezing or boiling..but I just saw a plethora of children sledding yesterday after a snowstorm. I just came back from a Christmas vacation with a large group of nieces/nephews skating, swimming, building snowmen, snowshoeing, sleigh rides and skiing. There was a new activity to do every day. Not one looked at their phone(not even adults) and the total of tv screen time was maybe a two hours out of their day waiting between eating meals together or physically playing together or if the weather did not permit a lot of outdoor activity. Upon which we had a lot of board games to play with each other. The kids do not do well with no activity and tend to get moody and hard to deal with so the parents do a lot to try to expend their extra energy. Having kids is a lot of work. Especially if some of the kids are on a particular spectrum in which we had two out of the group.
on one hand it’s probably the household/family type and I have no doubt there are quite a few families that definitely do need to give their head a shake but it’s not as ubiquitous and pervasive as you’re suggesting. Most parents I’ve seen biggest complaint is ‘I’m trying to tire them out.’ seems to be the catch phrase of the decade right now.
Wall E was a documentary set in the future.
Ha, I knew my Coke addiction would save me.
Our entire food industry is dedicated to high carb foods that generate more profits. Many, many people cannot handle a high carb diet and wind up fat, or sick. A much lower carb diet, including healthy fats and lots of fiber, lessens obesity, heart problem and diabetes. Been there, done that.
My GF is type 1 diabetic so I have to be aware all the time of how much carbs are in things. It's actually insane. A glass of OJ has as much carbs and a can of soda for instance. A glass of wine has ~100-120 calories. Breakfast cereal is essential just carbs and sugar.
Breakfast cereal has evolved into a "new" market for candy makers... Reese's cereal?? Just brand it as breakfast and people somehow think they're not feeding their kids candy for breakfast... I used to buy that kind of stuff for a dessert snack lol
Yeah juice is pure fast acting carbs. It has the same effect on my blood sugar as eating sugar lol
Also sugar is a carb.
Carbs are not bad for you, obscene amounts of sugar is. Yes you shouldn't just eat nothing but carbohydrates, but your body needs carbohydrates to fuel the muscles. Around 100 grams a day is considered the minimum you need to eat typically.
Not all carbs are the same. Fruit juice is simple sugars with little to no fiber.
Carbs are carbs, sugar is sugar, high glycemic sugars need somewhere to go quickly
I have a relative, a PhD no less (albeit in English), who "only eat natural organic GMO-free" and will absolutely not accept that fruits are sweet because of sugar and count against you like any other sugar
Well, while it is a type of sugar that makes fruits sweet, it in fact does get processed differently in your body. Fructose, among other things, can't be stored in muscles. Your body also doesn't need to provide Insulin to process it.
When comparing something sweetened with Fructose and something sweetened with Saccharose, the sweet from Fructose has less negative health impacts.
Unless I misunderstood what you mean with "count against you" (I am not a native English speaker).
It's not the sugar that's the problem, it's the calories.
Sure, if you're otherwise healthy, but the point is don't drink a glass of sugar water thinking it's healthy because fruits or vitamins or some bullshit, because it's not, and you probably don't need the extra calories.
Unless you do, and then you probably already know your shit anyways.
Proof of different types of intelligence right there.
2010 called, they said "duh"
This is why my kids don't get juice or soda other than special occasions. They get full fat milk twice a day and water all day long.
The article doesn't accurately represent the study. The harm isn't in any amount of fruit juice like it is with corn syrup and fake sugars, it's in multiple servings of fruit juice to children per day. The operative part from the study here -
Among cohort studies in children, each additional serving per day of 100% fruit juice was associated with a 0.03 (95% CI, 0.01-0.05) higher BMI change. Among cohort studies in adults, studies that did not adjust for energy showed greater body weight gain (0.21 kg; 95% CI, 0.15-0.27 kg) than studies that did adjust for energy intake (−0.08 kg; 95% CI, −0.11 to −0.05 kg; P for meta-regression <.001). RCTs in adults found no significant association of assignment to 100% fruit juice with body weight but the CI was wide (MD, −0.53 kg; 95% CI, −1.55 to 0.48 kg).
That said. As long as they're getting actual fruit, it's not like fruit juice is a requirement.
Inb4 Full Fat Milk now also makes you a bad parent.
The Media: Nothing you do is ever enough.
Hasn't this been well known for a couple decades now? Or is this just confirmation of that?
Replace fruit juice with soda in the title and no doubt it’s a slam dunk, but I personally didn’t realize how much sugar’s in fruit drinks until I entered it into a calorie tracker. I’m guessing fruit juice is slightly less bad compared to soda, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn most people are oblivious to how “not good” fruit juice is for them. Probably some, “Well, fruit is good for me, so fruit juice must be okay, too.”
This has been a pet peeve of mine for years, but I've never voiced it because I didn't feel like taking on the "you're an idiot" stares.
But seriously, I drink a diet soda and I'm supposed to feel shitty because "soda is bad" while someone chugs a sugary glass of juice and that's supposed to be healthier? Can I compromise and drink a Fresca? Lol
No fucking shit, dude.
That shit is worse for you than diet soda.
Why specifically 100% fruit juice?
Edit: I learned to read. It’s because of the no added sugar.
Added sugar is a problem when it’s added to things that don’t need it. The best way to mitigate this isn’t with a sugar tax, but to tax per calorie in the finished food for any amount of added sugar.
That would be great, but king corn would never let that happen in the US.
Funny that they didn't go with the constipation angle in addition to the calories angle. You can eat all the fruit you want and pass it well, but if you do just the juice, you get no fiber and you will get blocked up.
Can you explain why that hotel continental breakfast dispenser apple juice always makes you shit your brains out then?
BREAKING NEWS: Water may be linked with wetness, experts say
Eh. Parents don't usually give their kids soda for breakfast, even if juice has a comparable amount of sugar.
They also don't give their kids candy for breakfast, but cereal and pastries are okay.
This shouldn't have to be spelled out for you, but many people believe that juice is good for you.
"It's good for you! Here, have some more!"
-- American households with no concept of portion control
xD This is good, I'll have to remember this.
I was raised to dilute it with water to get "more" of it.
Something interesting is that the article doesn't differentiate between "from concentrate" and "fresh juice".
It's "no added sugar" metric is flawed too because that likely doesn't count Aspartame, or other alternative sweeteners, as the Nutrition facts do not count them as sugar either.
no added sugar is true - but it doesn't consider that 100% fruit juice has a metric SHIT TON of natural sugar in it. A glass of 100% orange juice is roughly the equivalent of something like 6-8 oranges.
As someone who was also raised to dilute it.
Thanks to shrinkflation they are already diluting it. It tastes water thin before you water it down, and it's still all sugar water.
That's because aspartame has not got the health impacts of sugar. It isn't sugar. So if you added aspartame, you're not adding sugar.
This is why I treat myself to the occasional coke zero and mostly just drink water. Is it boring? I guess so. But I've lost 100 pounds in the past two years and I'd really like to stay this way.
Too many negligent parents, especially in terms of health. Although American health science is pretty much profit lead dog shit
Regardless of what the other dude says, I think you're doing great. Drinking water? Great! Occasional treat without overdoing it? Great! Proud of your accomplishments and motivation to continue? Triple great!
You're improving yourself and seem to be satisfied with the results, that's all that matters.
as a teen i was nearly 250lbs. when i stopped snacking and drinking soda i went way down. now i usually hover around 170-180
Artificial sweeteners still trigger an insulin response, just like sugar. In the absence of glucose to leech out of the blood stream that then makes you hungry.
Studies aren't really 100% conclusive yet probably largely because individual differences are high, e.g. if you drink yours with a meal that has a different result than when drinking it without one and then having an extra snack. For the whole population diet sodas might just be a tad worse for weight gain than regular sodas, what we know for certain is that they're not significantly better.
But I’ve lost 100 pounds in the past two years and I’d really like to stay this way.
0.5 to 1% of body mass per week, no more, or you're likely to bounce back because ancient circuits in your body and brain think that they need to be ready for famine. In the end all those numbers don't really do much it's "eat healthy (meaning enough micronutrients), ideally varied (that's what seasons are for IMO), and only when you're hungry". Where hungry means your body needs energy, not your stomach isn't full, or you want to distract yourself, or whatever. We all do have perfectly sufficient weight regulation circuitry, no spreadsheet needed, and if you hear someone tell you "it's all about willpower" then what they have is an intact, unobstructed, circuitry which means that they don't need willpower.
And yes profit-driven food design is notorious for kicking that circuitry out of whack, our social environment does the rest: Merely eating only consciously, bite for bite, can reset the whole thing but who nowadays has time and nerve for that -- which is why you often see it done by proxy, studies show that pretty much any type of diet restriction leads to more conscious eating and therefore better weight regulation, restriction as in what you will eat or when (e.g. only seasonal stuff), not calories. Some set of rules restricting what's available for you in particular (that is, e.g. not eating pork when noone in your country even sells it doesn't count). The reason vegans and vegetarians aren't as prone to obesity has preciously little to do with what they eat, but that on average they spend more time thinking about what they eat than the rest of the population (modulo vegan malnourishment different topic but if you're a vegan you need to know your shit, it's not optional).
Homie I didn't just stop drinking soda. I went vegetarian for two years, work out every day, and started working a physical job instead of from home. I have a diet that is actually very easy to maintain, and I recently started eating fish again to ensure I'm getting more protein to gain muscle.
Thanks for the long response, but telling people they won't keep off the weight or that their changes are not sustainable only makes you sound like a jackass.
A glass of fruit juice still has calories in it. I would imagine that if you control for everything else that it's still a couple of hundred extra calories that one kid is taking in that some other kid isn't.
Not only that, it's also almost pure carbohydrates
Yeah, drink BRAWNDO!! Yeah
It has electrolytes.
It's what plants crave!
Grapefruit juice is an exception to this
Make sure to check with your doctor if you’re on any meds! Grapefruit juice can cause you to absorb more of your medication and can cause overdoses.
The most common drug it messes with is caffeine. Even a little grapefruit juice will make the effects of caffeine far more pronounced.
"Sugary drinks are bad for you?"
juiced like, 80 lilikoi last week. enough for two tall lints of pure fresh lilikoi juice for me and special lady friend.
Shit went down better than the best oj you've never had. I have no idea what those two glasses of juice would cost retail, but we saved lilikoi for a week to do that.
Juices require a ton of fruit. lemmings can have some juice. as a treat.
When I was a kid my mom thought she was teaching me healthy eating habits by doing things like encouraging me to drink lots of fruit juice.
This just in; drinking 30 percent sugar in moments every day causes weight gain.
We give our kids those horizon uht whole milk drinks like everyday. It's milk which is basically sugar, fat, protein, and a few other things. Is this going to cause a similar issue? We also have the siggi yogurt...
Nutritional values are nutritional values, weight is gained by regularly ingesting too many calories, no matter the source. There's benefits to milk but if your kids have a healthy diet in general they shouldn't need to drink it.
You don't need to eat anything if you have an otherwise healthy diet
But eventually you need to eat something to have that healthy diet. Milk contains a lot of good stuff. Bodybuilders usually drink whey protein shakes that have protein made from milk. The protein in milk is some of the best you can get for muscle gain
It's easy to consume too many calories with liquids. I'm sure it's fine I'm moderation, especially so if your kids love active lifestyles.
Age matters. Milk is not juice.
Please follow professional advice and not people on Internet.
Thanks, I was asking to see what others thought. It's not like I can really control what kids want to eat. 😂
Calories in calories out
It's not rocket science if you put in extra fuel the body will eventually turn that extra fuel into fat.
Just eat the god damn fruit children.
Please don't eat the fruit children.
The same study also came to the breakthrough realization that water is wet
Unfortunately, that realization is wrong; water makes wet, but is not by itself.
It's like drinking sodas.
"I lived a year on orange juice,
Thought I was doing well;
But now they tell me orange juice
Is fattening as well!"I read the whole article and all it says is that the weight gain is due to the lack of fibre in juice, which leads to not feeling satiated
So the weight gain is due to eating other things on top of the juice, no?
One glas of OJ is like the juice of 10 oranges. You simply wouldn't be able to eat that many because of all the bulk (fibre) that comes with it. But as juice, you can down them in seconds, giving you more sugar than a soda, which will lead to bloodsugar spikes, which will lead to Type 2 diabetis. So eat as much fruit as you like, it's super healthy, but don't drink fruit juice.
No, the weight gain is from the juice being high in sugar (like a fruit) without fiber (which a fruit has).
You're basically drinking sugar and there's nothing to slow down your metabolism or fill you up, so you take in too much sugar.
In theory if you mixed it with something fibrous like oats (that don't have their own sweatener) maybe you end up in a better place (if you drink less juice and you eat/drink less caloric beverages/food throughout your day -- i..e you trade bland oats and orange juice for a hamburger).
In general, adding things to your diet doesn't help unless you're also removing something (e.g., adding smoothies is great! ... but not if you're still having the hamburger and now also a smoothie vs water).
Drinking calories is almost always a bad idea.