Only about 7 percent of young children eat the recommended daily amount of fruit and vegetables, the Formosa Cancer Foundation said yesterday.
A foundation survey conducted last month of about 400 students, found that elementary-school children on average consume 1.55 servings of fruit and 1.72 servings of vegetables per day, foundation vice president Tsai Li-chuan (蔡麗娟) said.
The Health Promotion Administration’s recommended daily intake is two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables per day, but only 7 percent of children surveyed said they ate that much, she said.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
The survey found that the top three reasons for not eating enough fruit and vegetables were that the child is a picky eater and does not like vegetables, life is busy and preparing fruit and vegetables is too troublesome, and the family mostly eats out at places with limited fruit and vegetable options.
Although nearly 80 percent of the children eat breakfast, nearly 90 percent only eat fruit and vegetables at lunch and dinner, Tsai said.
More than 50 percent of parents said they were aware that their children do not eat enough fruits and vegetables, and were trying to improve it, the survey showed.
Chen Mu-jung (陳木榮), superintendent of Your Doctor Clinic, a pediatric clinic in New Taipei City, said that many children eat out or consume ready-to-eat food such as steamed buns, sandwiches and bread for breakfast out of convenience.
However, high carbohydrate foods can cause a child’s blood sugar level to soar, making them drowsy, emotionally unstable and even affecting their learning potential, Chen said.
Fruits and vegetables can provide essential nutrients to the human body, such as vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber, he said, adding that consuming sufficient amounts of vegetables helps maintain a healthy immune system, while improving children’s emotional stability and digestive health.
Chen said that parents can add easy-to-eat fruit to their children’s breakfast, such as kiwifruit or guava, to increase their intake, or add fruit, vegetables, cheese or meat to bread to make a more nutritionally balanced breakfast.
Foundation dietitian Hsu Kuei-ting (徐桂婷) said the survey showed that the average fruit and vegetables intake of children is not too far from the recommended serving, and that the gap can be made up by adding fruit and vegetables to children’s breakfast.
She said that parents can add easy-to-prepare fruit such as bananas, kiwifruit and grapes to their children’s breakfast meals, which they can also easily take to school to eat if they are in a rush.
Eating more fruit and vegetables can also help children focus bettering during the school day, Hsu said.
If parents have time to make breakfast, they can change the shape and texture of vegetables that their children dislike and make them into delicious meals, such as by adding pieces of vegetables to an omelet or mixing fresh fruit into yogurt, she said.
Additional reporting by CNA
COLLABORATION: As TSMC is building an advanced wafer fab in Dresden, Germany, it needs to build a comprehensive supply chain in Europe, Joseph Wu said Taiwan is planning to team up with the Czech Republic to build a semiconductor cluster in the European country, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Friday. Wu, who led a Taiwanese delegation at the annual GLOBSEC Forum held in Prague from Friday to today, said in a news conference that Taiwan seeks to foster cooperation between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and its counterparts in Czechia. Such cooperation is expected to transform the country into one of the most important semiconductor clusters in Europe over the next three to five years, he added. As TSMC is building an advanced
A joint declaration by Pacific leaders was reissued yesterday morning with mentions of Taiwan removed after China slammed an earlier version as a “mistake” that “must be corrected.” After five days of talks in Tonga, a “cleared” communique was released on Friday that reaffirmed a 30-year-old agreement allowing Taiwan to take part in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). However, the wording immediately raised the ire of Chinese diplomats, who piled pressure on Pacific leaders to amend the document. The forum reissued the communique without explanation yesterday morning, conspicuously deleting the paragraph concerning the bloc’s “relations with Taiwan.” “It must be a
China lacks the ability to “fully” invade Taiwan as it does not have the equipment, but is bringing online advanced new weapons and has other options to threaten Taiwan, such as inspecting foreign cargo ships, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday. In an annual threat assessment of China sent to lawmakers, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, the ministry said Beijing continues to hone skills such as joint command operations. “However, the use of tactics and strategies against Taiwan is still limited by the natural geographical environment of the Taiwan Strait and insufficient landing equipment and logistic capabilities,”
A tropical depression in waters east of the Philippines could develop into a tropical storm as soon as today and bring rainfall as it approaches, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, while issuing heat warnings for 14 cities and counties. Weather model simulations show that there are still considerable differences in the path that the tropical depression is projected to take. It might pass through the Bashi Channel to the South China Sea or turn northeast and move toward the sea south of Japan, CWA forecaster Yeh Chih-chun (葉致均) said, adding that the uncertainty of its movement is still high,