A study revealed that American kids and teens prefer apples when it comes to fruits.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention got the information on apples from 3,129 youths who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The kids were asked to recall everything they drank and ate in the previous 24 hours in 2011 and 2012.
Apples account for 29% of the fruit consumed on any given day in the United States. About one-third of that is sipped as 100% apple juice, and two-thirds is eaten as whole apples.
Kids rely on apples to live up to government sanctions to ingest up to two cups of fruit per day. "Toddlers between the ages of 2 and 5 get 15% of their daily fruit from apples and 17% from juice. Children between the ages of 6 and 11 count on apples for 22% of their total fruit intake and apple juice for an additional 9%. Adolescents in the 12-to-19 age group get 19% of their fruit in the form of apples and 7% from apple juice," Los Angeles Times informed.
Moreover, the study stressed that appeal of apples is ostensible through all racial and ethnic groups as it unfailingly take the top spot among all types of fruits.
"Latino kids get 21.2% of their daily fruit from apples, as do 19.2% of Asian American kids, 18.5% of white kids and 17.2% of African American kids," the study revealed. "Apple juice adds an additional 9.8%, 7.7%, 10.4% and 10.5% to those figures, respectively."
Aside from whole apples and apple juice, American kids have also consumed bananas (6.8%), berries (4.3%), citrus (4.6%), citrus juice (14.3%), dried fruits (0.6%), grapes (2.8%), melons (6%), other fruit juice (9%) and peaches and nectarines (3.5%).
Furthermore, it was learned that there were differences on apple intake according to race and ethnicity. Asian Americans got 60% of their total fruit in the form of whole fruit, while African Americans got 43%. With whole fruit accounting for 55% of their total fruit consumption, Latino and white children were in the middle.
