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FOOD GUIDE PYRAMID USDA's Food Guide Pyramid for Young Children USDA's original Food Guide Pyramid

June 2, 1999
Web posted at: 12:24 p.m. EDT (1624 GMT)

(CNN) -- Keeping little fingers out of the cookie jar may be a quick way to keep kids eating healthy, but it may not be the best parental practice for promoting a long-term diet, say researchers from Pennsylvania State University.

Their study, published this month in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggests that limiting children's access to certain foods may cause overindulgence when they are free to choose their own food.

After several weeks of free choice during snack time, children in the study were restricted from eating certain foods but could still see the food in jars. When food was no longer restricted, children took much larger than normal portions of the off-limits food.

"This research does not imply that parents should let children have whatever they want whenever they want it," the lead author of the study, Jennifer Orlet Fisher, said in a statement. "Structure is as important in child feeding as it is in any other aspect of parenting. Parents should provide children with a variety of nutritious foods and with enough guidance to help their children make reasonable decisions about what and how much to eat."

The study said only about 1 percent of all children ages 2 to 19 meet the guidelines recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Guide Pyramid.