Comparing Labels
Food labels aren't ideal for kids because they're calculated based on what adults
need to eat. A kid's diet might be more or less than 2,000 calories, based on your
age, whether you are a boy or girl, and how active your are. Likewise, kids may need
more or less of certain food components and nutrients, such as calcium and iron.
But kids can still get important information from food labels. They can get a general
idea about what the food contains, how much is in a serving, and how many calories
are in a serving.
Kids also can use labels to compare two foods. Which one has more fiber? Which
one has more fat? Which one has more calories per serving?
The ingredient list is another important part of the label. Ingredients are listed
in order so you get an idea of how much of each ingredient is in the food. When something
is listed first, second, or third, you know that this food probably contains a lot
of it. The food will contain smaller amounts of the ingredients mentioned at the end
of the list.
With that in mind, check ingredient lists to see where sugar appears. Limit foods
that mention sugar in the first few ingredients. That means it's a very sugary food.
Sugar has different names, so it might also be called high fructose corn syrup, corn
syrup, sucrose, or glucose.
Serving Size
The nutrition label always lists a serving size, which is an amount of food, such
as 1 cup of cereal, two cookies, or five pretzels. The nutrition label tells
you how many nutrients are in that amount of food.
Serving sizes also help people understand how much they're eating. If you ate 10
pretzels, that would be two servings.
Servings per Container or Package
The label also tells you how many servings are contained in that package of food.
If there are 15 servings in a box of cookies and each serving is two cookies, you
have enough for all 30 kids in your class to have one cookie each. Math comes in handy
with food labels!
Calories and Calories From Fat
The number of calories in a single serving of the food is listed on the left of
the label. This number tells you the amount of energy in the food. The calories in
a food can come from fat, protein, or carbohydrate. People pay attention to calories
because if you eat more calories than your body uses, you will gain weight.
Another important part of the label is the number of calories that come from fat.
People check this because it's good to limit fat intake to about 30% or less of the
calories they eat.