Children Who Eat Healthy Just As Likely To Make Poor Food Choices

Previous studies have suggested that kids who eat more fruits and vegetables will be less likely to eat highly processed foods filled with empty calories. However, new findings conducted by researchers at The Ohio State University call this into question.

Researchers looked at preschoolers from low-income neighborhoods in Columbus who ate fruits and vegetables and who drank milk several times a day. They discovered that these children were just as likely to eat foods high in sugar, salt and fat as others who rarely ate healthy food. While more research is needed, if replicated on a larger scale, researchers believe the discovery could lead to the reframing of conversations about how to improve children's diets and lower rates of childhood obesity.

"This suggests that we have to have two conversations," said co-author Phyllis Pirie, professor of health behavior and health promotion at Ohio State, in news release. "There has been a kind of assumption there that if you encourage people to adopt healthy eating that it naturally leads to a decline in unhealthy eating."

During the study, trained interviewers met with parents or guardians of 357 children 2 to 5 years old and asked them to recall how often the children ate certain foods in the past week. About 60 percent of the children were black and almost all were Medicaid recipients, according to the study. Furthermore, almost half were not in child care - a higher percentage than in the general U.S. population.

Researchers asked them information on the children's diets and categorized foods, as well as drinks into healthy and unhealthy categorizes--including fruits, vegetables and milk. Unhealthy choices ranged from fast food and sweetened drinks to sweets and salty snacks. 

Surprisingly, researchers found that regardless of age, children who ate fruits and vegetables and drank milk were any less likely to consume unhealthy foods. 

Of course, the findings aren't telling parents to and policymakers to stop giving their kids nutritious food. However, the study results do challenge the idea that "good automatically replaces bad."

The study is published in the Maternal and Child Health Journal.

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