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"  Juice cleanses have been around for ages, but after the fad hit a zenith this past year, researchers finally started looking into how healthy they really are. The results from a recent study were grim, and those findings were just about adults. You&amp;#039;d probably never even think to look for ones about the effect of juicing on kids because, well, it just doesn&amp;#039;t seem like something kids should be doing.  Unfortunately, they are. A recent story in Page Six detailed a 6-year-old who loves to drink her mom&amp;#039;s special green juices. In this case, Sofia&amp;#039;s mother makes sure to supplement the juices with other types of food. However, a California company called Dherbs.com sells a set of four liquid extracts called the &amp;quot;Children&amp;#039;s Cleanse&amp;quot; for $99. The extracts are meant to be paired with a raw-food diet and are recommended for children between the ages of 2 and 12 (!). &amp;quot;[C]onsider the first food or substance a newborn is given in the hospital after arrival; mother&amp;#039;s breast-milk? NOPE! The correct answer is: SUGAR the number one drug on the planet. Every hospital-born baby is a sugar junkie and addict. The water they give babies in the hospital is saturated with sucrose (white sugar),&amp;quot; Dherbs explains on the Children&amp;#039;s Cleanse product page.  The only problem? Juices are also sugar. Maybe not the white sugar to which Dherbs is referring, but giving your 2-year-old juice still means giving him or her sugar. Dr. Dyan Hes, the Medical Director of Gramercy Pediatrics in New York City who also sits on the board of the American Board of Obesity Medicine, warned us about the unhealthy side-effects of kids drinking too much juice or cleansing.  &amp;quot;Juice is the number-one cause of obesity in children. It takes the fiber out of the fruit and just leaves natural sugar, which kids digest quickly. Kids need protein and fat, not sugar. Children under four shouldn&amp;#039;t have more than half a cup of juice a day. And children don&amp;#039;t need to be cleansed; it&amp;#039;s not good for their liver,&amp;quot; Dr. Hes says. Plus, the binge-purge cycles of juice cleanses could trigger more harmful eating behaviors in people with certain personality types, including children. &amp;quot;Awareness of cleanses at a very young age could lead to eating disorder behaviors,&amp;quot; Dr. Marisol Gonzalez, who specializes in adolescent medicine, told the Post.  Should kids be cleansing? All signs seem to point to heck no. [Via ELLE] Related Are Today&amp;#039;s Fad Diets Okay for Kids? Juice-O-Rexia: Could Cleansing Trigger a Whole New Harmful Eating Pattern? The Medical Community Finally Has Something to Say About Juicing Follow REDBOOK on Twitter. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/body/healthy-eating/news/a17435/juice-cleanses-for-kids/>