WHAT ARE WE FEEDING OUR KIDS? ...

WHAT ARE WE FEEDING OUR KIDS? by Michael F. Jacobson & Bruce Maxwell (Workman: $8.95; 309 pp.; paperback original). Until recently, children’s nutrition programs in America were designed to prevent deficiency diseases--rickets, pellagra, goiter. Today, doctors work to correct the dietary excesses of overweight, idle children. (Kids as young as 3 show signs of the cholesterol build-up that leads to arterial sclerosis.) Jacobson and Maxwell present alarming data on popular junk and fast food: A 12-ounce can of Coke or Pepsi contains about 10 teaspoons of sugar; Arby’s roast chicken club sandwich has 1,423 milligrams of sodium--three times the daily requirement of a person under 18. The authors also damn the contributions of advertising, especially seductive TV commercials, to this nutritional disaster.