The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a report that showed that about 12 percent of children in the US obtain their calorie intake from fast food items.
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The CDC revealed that above 30% of the US child population is consuming fast food daily.
Teens between the ages of 12 and 19 consumed twice the average daily percentage of calories from fast food that younger children did.
The survey also showed there was no difference between boys and girls, but the children under 11 went to fast food restaurants more rarely than those between 11 and 19.
Fast food contains high amounts of calories and according to experts, the consumption of such goodies including pizza, burgers and French fries, which are all too attractive for kids, is a significant contributory factor to the presence of overweight children.
It can be remembered that in the years 1994 through 2006, caloric intake from fast food increased from 10 percent to 13 percent among children aged 2-18 years. “Previous studies have reported that acculturation to the U.S. lifestyle plays an important role in the adoption of unhealthy behaviors, such as fast food consumption, in Asian-American and other immigrant groups”, the study authors write. “They’re less likely to be indoctrinated into numerous popular [habits] here, like eating fast food”, said Stanford. So the calories children get today from fast food may have improved – or it may have gotten worse. Asian American kids were less likely than their peers to visit a fast-food joint: Only 8% did so on any given day, on average.
Childhood obesity rates are constantly going up in the United States, which has prompted the authorities to take a closer look at what these children are eating. Although he eats fast food once every other day, she’s not anxious about his health. It says the extent of weight problems is holding regular at about 17 p.c and affecting about 12.7 million kids and adolescents.
“A particular challenge with teenagers is that they all feel invincible, and they’re not as sensitive to the long-term impacts of [diet] on their health”, Pont says.
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For those who eat fast food daily, Zeller suggested cutting back or trying to eat it in moderation.
