Poorer babies on sorrier diet

HALF of babies from poorer Australian families are consuming sugary drinks like fruit juice, fizzy drinks and cordial before their first birthday, driving up their risk of obesity.

A new study of 3000 children found they were also twice as likely to be given savoury snacks than those from wealthier backgrounds.

Melbourne researchers were shocked by the alarming number of babies, aged 0- 12 months of age, consuming sugary drinks when they should only be having milk or water.

Children’s taste preferences and dietary habits are established from an early age and those who are overweight when they are young are likely to continue to be unhealthily heavy as adults.

Deakin University researcher Alexandra Chung said they found a quarter of children from wealthier backgrounds consumed sweet beverages. In poorer families, one in two kids had consumed these drinks in the past 24 hours.

“The huge difference in sweet drink consumption in the first year of life … was the most alarming finding,” Ms Chung said.

“Children under one should not be having any sweet drinks.”

For older children, guidelines recommend half a cup of fruit juice as an occasional drink. They also found 70 per cent of children from all backgrounds were eating cakes, sweet biscuits and doughnuts at two or three years of age.

“But when we looked a savoury snacks, like pies, sausage rolls and chips, we found kids from poorer families were consuming more of those foods at all ages,” Ms Chung said.

Mother of three Ali Callinan had a simple approach to limiting the amount of junk food her children Maggie, 5, Paddy, 9 and Emily, 11 consume.

“We just don’t have it in the house and it removes the temptation,” she said.

The research is published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.