Over One-Third Of Kids Eat Fast Food On Any Given Day

Kids are getting more of their calories from fast food!

The percentage of calories consumed from fast food differed little by sex, poverty status and weight status. Using data from the 2011-12 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey-which tracked 3,100 kids’ diets for one day-researchers determined that children consume about 12.4 percent of their calories from fast food.

The ethnic group with the bottom each day consumption of quick meals had been non-Hispanic Asian kids, at eight p.c. On the different finish of the spectrum have been non-Hispanic black kids at 13.9 %, adopted by non-Hispanic white youngsters at 13.1 p.c and Hispanic kids at 11.2 p.c.

The obesity rate in children has more than doubled in the past 30 years, rising from 7 percent in 1980 to almost 18% in 2012. All of them were kids and teens with the age between 2 and 19 (the really young ones had their parents answer for them), and all of them were asked about what they ate in the 24 hours before the survey.

The report found that children eat the equivalent of a small hamburger – such as the kind found in a McDonald’s Happy Meal – every day, said Kristi King, a senior clinical dietitian with Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, who wasn’t involved in the new study. “It is a sign we have some work to do to help families come up with practical solutions”, said Dr. Esther Krych, a pediatrician with the Mayo Clinic’s Children’s Center in Rochester, Minnesota. However, Asians had a lower average, about 8 percent.

Keeping in mind that some kids consume more calories than others, the average is somewhere around 245 daily calories from fast food products.

“When looking at issues like obesity, I think we assume it’s all about fast food consumption”, Stanford told Healthline.

The study defined fast food as any food reported as “restaurant fast food/pizza”.

Government and state officials are actively trying to keep the situation under control.

“The bad part isn’t stopping for fast food or pizza once in a while, it’s when it becomes a habit and turns into excess consumption of high fat and high calorie foods”, she said”.