Eight- to 10-year olds with high cholesterol marginally improve their eating habits after receiving tools to make healthy eating choices and years of dietary advice, according to new study findings.

Specifically, kids participating in the intervention increased their intake of most recommended foods, and decreased the amount of many unhealthy foods they ate.

However, children who were coached on eating healthy continued to eat only small amounts of fruits and vegetables, and still got one third of their daily calories from snacks, desserts and pizza.

Desserts and snacks are typically laden with salt, sugar and fat, the authors write in the journal Pediatrics, putting kids at ongoing risk of obesity, high cholesterol, and diabetes, among other problems.

"Targeted emphasis on fruits, vegetables, nonfat dairy, and whole-grain foods as snack foods could potentially help to improve both the nutritional quality and energy balance of children's dietary intake," write Linda Van Horn of Northwestern University in Chicago and her colleagues.

All of the 663 children were between 8 and 10 years old when the study began.

Half of the children took part in an intervention, during which they attended regular group and individual information sessions led by experts on healthy eating, and received detailed information on the amount they should eat from different food groups.

As part of the recommendations, children and parents were asked to switch to low-fat versions of meat and dairy, and limit total fat to 28 percent of children's daily calories, with less than 8 percent of total calories from saturated fat.

Children and parents also received a "dictionary" that listed every food as "whoa" or "go," according to its amount of fat and cholesterol.

Children who did not participate in the intervention received materials, largely publicly available, about heart-healthy eating.

At the outset of the diet, children got approximately 57 percent of their daily calories from "go" foods.

After three years, children who received the intervention increased their intake of all recommended "go" foods, except for fruit, and decreased the amount of "whoa" foods they ate, except for pizza.

Specifically, children who participated in the dietary intervention reported getting 67 percent of calories from "go" foods. Those who did not receive the intervention did not appear to include any more "go" foods in their diets.

Furthermore, children in the intervention did a slightly better job than other children at decreasing their servings of many "whoa" foods, including fat-laden choices from breads and grains, dairy, meat, poultry and snacks.

However, both groups of children still got approximately one third of their total calories from snack foods, desserts and pizza, and ate few fruits or vegetables.

SOURCE: Pediatrics, June 2005.