NHANES: One third of American children eat fast food regularly

Over 36% of children in the United States ate fast food on any day from 2015 to 2018. National Health and Nutrition Survey (Naines) Data are shown.

More than 11% of American children and adolescents aged 2 to 19 consume more than 45% of their daily calories from fast food, according to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in Hyattsville, MD. Sheryl Freyer MSPH reported. ..

of NCHS data overview Also, approximately 14% of these young people get 25-45% of their daily calories from fast food, while about 11% get less than a quarter of their daily calories from fast food. Is not …

However, data show that about 64% of young people in the United States did not consume any fast food on a typical day.

These numbers are very alarming, especially given the fact that fast foods tend to be high in calories, high in sodium and saturated fat, and later in heart disease, preventive cardiologist S. Skylar Griggs. Will increase the risk of. Boston Children’s Hospital MS, RD, LDN MedPage today..

“It also reflects a fast-paced culture and grabs cheap, full food on the go,” she added.

Griggs, who was not involved in the study, pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic may only increase fast food consumption.

“A pandemic will significantly increase unemployment, and families will be looking for cheap and easy products,” she explained. “As a provider, we should be ready to provide reasonable alternatives to these food choices that are neither labor-intensive nor expensive.”

For health care providers who manage pediatric patients, Griggs recommended that special attention should be paid to questions about fast food intake during well-visit, including in-house counseling of healthy quick food options.

For example, the provider can advise the child to replace the fried chicken sandwich with a grilled chicken, or choose between fried potatoes or soda, but not both. “I simply don’t think it’s unrealistic to ask these children to eat no fast food the more we like it,” Griggs said.

In a cross-sectional study, researchers directly relied on a 24-hour meal recall to define fast food as food listed as “restaurant fast food/pizza.” Beverages were not included in the fast food category.

Recalls of young participants were made using proxies, but participants over the age of 12 responded to the survey. The report did not show the number of participants included in the analysis, but a total of about 19,000 people of all ages provided data at NHANES during the biennial iteration, The age distribution generally reflects that of the entire population.

The Fryar group has also found that the amount of fast food consumed tends to vary by age and ethnic group. For example, teenagers are more likely to eat fast food than younger children, with rates ranging from about 11% of the average daily percentage of average calories for children aged 2-11 to about 12-19 Jumped up to 17%.

In addition, non-Hispanic white children tended to consume the least amount of fast food on any given day, accounting for about 13% of their daily calories. Fast food accounted for approximately 15% and 17% of the average daily calories of young Hispanic and non-Hispanic blacks, respectively.

On the other hand, no general significant difference was observed in fast food consumption between boys and girls.

Researchers compared this recent data with previous survey data, and the amount of daily fast food consumed in recent years is not much different from what American young people ate more than 10 years ago, the team said. Said. By comparison, children and teens consumed approximately 14.1% of their daily calories from fast food between 2003 and 2004. But this is an increase from the lows seen in 2009-2010 when fast food accounted for 10.6% of a child’s daily calories, Fryar and co-authors said.

Griggs also proposed paying attention to a population with a high prevalence of fast food consumption, and thus “direct education on neighborhood fast food intake and choices and the risks of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity”. Provided