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Kids Who Eat Too Much Fat, or Too Little, Prone to Weight Gain
And too many aren't eating enough dairy products, study finds
By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter
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THURSDAY, March 4 (HealthDayNews) -- Children who eat very high levels of fat or very low levels of fat, as well as those with a low intake of dairy products, gain more weight than kids who eat moderate amounts of fat.
That's the conclusion of a new study by researchers at Boston University, who will present their findings March 4 at the American Heart Association's Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease, Epidemiology and Prevention in San Francisco.
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This is just the latest in a long line of research pointing to the dangerous dietary habits of American kids, health experts say.
"This is a multifactorial problem that's escalating in an alarming way and creating an epidemic [of obesity]," says Dr. George Fielding, a bariatric surgeon and specialist in adolescent obesity at New York University's Surgical Weight Loss Program in New York City. "The changes in the last 10 years have been frightening."
Among those changes are kids eating more fast food and, in particular, more super-sized fast foods. Instead of drinking one can of soda, kids are drinking 2 liters. Also, Fielding adds, "there's data showing that 25 percent of all the food that children in Australia and the U.S. eat is snack food and there's nothing good in it."
"If they're getting 25 percent of their food this way, they are just drowning in calories," Fielding adds. The average 12-year-old needs about 1,500 calories a day, while the average consumption in the United States is about 3,600, he says.
In addition, many fast foods and snack foods don't make you feel full, Fielding adds.
There's another aspect to the equation -- children are getting less exercise. "You have to walk for 45 minutes to walk off one can of Coke," Fielding says. "Kids are being squeezed on all fronts."
The new study, part of the Framingham Children's Study, analyzed the dietary habits of 106 families who had one child 3 to 5 years old at the start of the study. The children kept "food diaries" with detailed descriptions of foods, portions, brands and recipes consumed over a 12-year period until the participants were adolescents. The diaries were analyzed and then cross-tabulated with excessive gains in body fat during that period.
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Copyright © 2004 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Last updated 3/4/2004
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SOURCES: Lynn Moore, D.Sc., associate professor, medicine, Boston University School of Medicine; George Fielding, M.D., bariatric surgeon and specialist, adolescent obesity, Surgical Weight Loss Program, New York University, and associate professor, surgery, New York University School of Medicine, New York City; March 4, 2004, presentation, American Heart Association Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease, Epidemiology and Prevention, San Francisco
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