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McMeen Elementary
Weekly Health Office News
02/14/24, 2:39 PM
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Greetings McMeen, February is American Health Month
According to the American Heart Association:
Eating too much salt can contribute to health problems. On average, youths ages 2 to 19 eat more than 3,100 milligrams sodium per day, about double what the AHA recommends. Too much sodium is associated with higher blood pressure in children and teens, and the effect is even greater if they're overweight or obese. Kids with high-sodium diets are almost 40% more likely to have elevated blood pressure than kids with lower-sodium diets. This information is very concernsing because, as many of us already know, elevated blood pressure can lead to many concerning health problems, inlcuding heart diease. Here at McMeen, we often see students with daily salty snacks and drinks.
Wait, what? Salty drinks? Yes, popular drinks such as Gatorade and Prime Hydration have added salt. One single Gatorade bottle can have almost 270 milligrams of salt! That is about 1/4 of the recommended daily salt intake for a child. One single bag of Takis can have about 420 mg of salt. This means that, if you child has had one bag of chips, such as Takis, and a Gatorade, they have already met 3/4 of recommended daily salt intake. And we all know that these two items are not the only things children are eating and drinking in a single day.
Gatorade and even Prime Hydration, which has a significantly lower ammount of salt than Gatorade, are meant to support individuals who are in need of electrolyte replacement. In fact, a bottle of Gatorade can about about 36 grams of sugar. Unless your child is experiencing severe dehydration from a diarrheal illness, these drinks are not recommended for daily consumption. If there is concern about your children staying hydrated, water is the best and cheapest way to assure your child is well hydrated. The same goes for adults! Unless an adult is experiencing extreme dehydration from diarrhea or has completed an intense ammount of strenous activity such as running a marathon, water is best and much healthier than Gatorade.
Snacks like Takis and other chips should be given as an every once in a while snack/treat and not used as a daily snack. Not only are these products extremely high in salt, they also lack any sort of nutritional value and often don't help satisfy hunger, which can, in turn, lead to people eating even more than they would if they had had a more nutritious snack such as a string cheese or handful of almonds. Many of the most popular chip flavors are also high in "spicy" or "hot" ingredients which, especially if consumed on a regular basis, have been known to cause heartburn, stomachaches, and potention ulcers.
Please consider watching the fun and informative video, below, with your children. For more information about about heart-healthly eating and all things heath health, please click on the link below: https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating Be Kind to Your Hearts! |
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