LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) \u2014 University of Kentucky Assistant Professor Shuoli Zhao is raising awareness about ready-to-eat cereals for kids.<\/p>\n
Looking at cereals marketed to kids age five to twelve, Dr. Zhao’s work is featured in Jama Network.<\/p>\n
Results from a study reveal that many ready-to-eat kids’ cereals are getting less healthy over time.<\/p>\n
“This is very big topic of children for their health intake, and food intake,” Zhao said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Zhao, from the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture Food and Environment led the study with this research framework in mind.<\/p>\n
“It’s really under the umbrella of the connections between the market, individual choices, as well as the policy that motivates people to make individual choices,” Zhao noted.<\/p>\n
A starting point for the study addressed concern about the choice of convenience over nutrition.<\/p>\n
“The first thing we have to really acknowledge is that most of the working parents, they are really shopping under time constraint,” Zhao said.<\/p>\n
In turn?<\/p>\n
“A lot of times they probably don’t have the time to really compare different products and look at the back of the package,” Zhao noted.<\/p>\n
Zhao tells LEX18 that after analyzing new cereals for kids, results show rising fat, sodium, and sugar with falling protein and fiber. He makes this suggestion when you shop:<\/p>\n
“Avoiding all the colorful ones, avoiding all the ones that see themselves as being chocolate or frosted,” Zhao said.<\/p>\n
One statistic shows a single serving often has enough added sugar to exceed 45% of the American Heart Association’s daily limit for kids.<\/p>\n
“Six grams of sugar is already really on the lower side of that, so the average is about 11 grams of one serving,” Zhao said.<\/p>\n
As Zhao puts it, considering they’re highly marketed and heavily processed, ultimately, this is his advice about ready-to-eat cereals for children:<\/p>\n
“Actually pay attention to the objective statistics on the back of the package. That’s what matters most,” Zhao said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Zhao notes that the study is limited in that it only covers newly released cereals…not a representation of the entire cereal market.<\/p>\n
However, one of his next priorities is to dive deeper into existing cereals, as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) \u2014 University of Kentucky Assistant Professor Shuoli Zhao is raising awareness about ready-to-eat cereals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[97,269],"class_list":{"0":"post-85818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-nutrition"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}