Our perception of juice needs a radical makeover, starting with our kids. Juice comes in easy single serving, shelf-stable packages that parents don’t hesitate to give to kids anywhere. Yet children don’t need juice for nutritional purposes, and most juice boxes contain more than the 4-to-6 ounce maximum recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics for daily consumption by kids under 6. In fact, kids who drink juice regularly are shorter and heavier than kids who rarely drink juice, probably because they consume less milk, something young children do need for healthy growth. The perception that juice is good for kids comes in part from the Women, Children and Infants Supplemental Food Program, better known as WIC, which provides food assistance to 25 percent of all pregnant women and half of all children in the U.S. at some point in their first five years of life. While the program has helped to improve birth outcomes and cognitive development in participants, it needs some revision. The WIC program supplies a very narrow range of foods deemed healthy for pregnant women and growing children. This includes healthy staples such as milk and eggs, but surprisingly also includes two gallons of juice per month. When the program started in the 1970s, there wasn’t an obesity epidemic, and undernutrition was a major concern. In that context, giving juice rather than fresh fruits and vegetables — which also didn’t have the year-round availability that they do now — may have made sense. Today, it just feeds the false perception that juice is a healthy choice.

So what can we do to start fixing this problem? First, recognize juice for what it is: a treat. It doesn’t belong at your breakfast table or after your workout at the gym. Next, get juice out of your children’s lives.