There is no such thing as “hidden calories.” Just look at the nutrition label and you’ll see in seconds the amount of calories, carbs, sugar, protein, and fat. Juice Boxes: 100% Natural Juice and Filled with Calories and Sugar and can add hundreds of calories a day that are unnecessary and easily replaced with zero calorie, zero sugar alternatives.

“Natural”Fruit Juices are NOT Natural:

Orange juice, grape juice, or apple juice, whether you squeeze it or Tropicana or Motts, are not “natural.” Orange juice quarts or apples do not grow on trees nor do grape juice boxes grow on vines. It is the fruit itself that is “natural” and healthy. Squeezing and handling the fruit only removes the protective fibers, making absorption from the stomach even faster. What you end up with is a highly palatable, convenient, and inexpensive beverage that has hundreds of extra calories. Coinciding with the rise in childhood obesity, the movement of fruit juices from pure breakfast beverages to all-day beverages occurred. Children take a juice box like they would take a glass of water and drink it.

Fruit juice has become the drink of choice for many young children, replacing milk and water.

Juice boxes are everywhere: at home, schools, daycare centers, and of course, in vending machines. The juice is aggressively marketed as a ‘health drink for growing bodies’. It’s the new milk. Packaged in small easy-to-hold boxes with their own straw, they can be taken anywhere. With labels claiming how healthy they are and flavors designed to appeal, it’s no wonder such a problem exists. Drinking fruit juices, especially citrus, causes rapid rises and falls in blood sugar and the need for more and more sugar. Fruit juice does not contain fiber and children who drink it regularly rarely drink water. Not all fruit juices are 100% juice. Some contain high fructose corn syrup or other sweeteners, as well as artificial colors and preservatives. Most juice boxes have 100 calories and 20 grams of sugar. A child who drinks just one juice box a day, similar to soda or sports drinks, will gain 10 lbs. in a year if it represents an excess of calories. Almost no children cut calories throughout the day to make up for the extra calories from the juice. They quickly become a source of extra calories that were never needed in the first place.

There are “NO hidden calories in drinks:

The calories in beverages aren’t hidden—they’re listed on the Nutrition Facts label—but many people don’t realize how many calories beverages can add to their daily intake. As you can see in the example below, the calories in drinks can really add up. The good news, though, is that there are plenty of calorie-free or nearly calorie-free alternatives. Check out the list below to estimate how many calories your kids and teens are getting from these drinks:

Calories in 12 and 20 oz. of Sugary Drinks

type of drink

Fruit Punch ———– 192 —– 320

Apple juice 100% — 192 ——300

Orange juice 100% – 168 —–280

Lemonade————168 —–280

Regular lemon/lime soda – 148 —247

Normal queue ——————136 —227

Sweetened Lemon Iced Tea – 135– 225

Regular ginger ale ———— 124 –207

Sports drink – ——————–99 —-165

Water Fitness- ——————18——-36

Unsweetened Iced Tea – ——-2 ——–3

Diet soda (with aspartame)— 0*——– 0*

Carbonated water (without sugar)- 0—- 0

Water ————————————— 0 —-0

*Some diet soft drinks may contain a small number of calories that are not listed on the Nutrition Facts label.

(USDA National Nutrient Database for standard reference)

Consequence of a single 100-130 calorie drink every day for a year:

Remember that 100 calories a day from any food or drink adds up to 10 lbs. Weight gain for a year. Combine the calories with all the sugar in one tasty drink, and you have a disaster for the waistlines of adults, children, and teens: An extra 100 calories a day translates to a 2-inch increase in waist girth. Every 2 inches increases obesity-related complications by 17%

Normal weight gain in children and adolescents:

With more than 33% of children and adolescents overweight and 14% truly obese, the extra calories in some of these drinks become crucial in reducing childhood obesity. If you look at charts that show normal height and growth for children ages 6 to 16, you’ll see that it’s normal for a child to gain about 10 pounds. per year Adding just one juice box, one day doubles weight gain to 20 lbs. one year.

No additional weight gain can be the goal:

The concept for many families is not always to seek weight loss in growing children, simply ending the additional weight gain may be enough for some. For others, one simply needs to reduce annual weight gain to zero. Very few children and adolescents really need to reduce their weight in significant amounts.

The ideal plan is to let normal growth and development result in the overweight child achieving normal weight in one to two years and the normal-weight overeating child remaining normal.