Fast food may weaken your child

Well, then chances are you not only should worry about her nutritional intake, but also her bone health. According United Kingdom researchers who conducted the study, nutritious food is necessary especially in childhood days, as it is the time when body requires nutrients like proteins, etc in high amount and fast food just fills the stomach without adding to health which leads to weak bones.

The study is the first to investigate the effects of the neighbourhood food environment on bone mass in children from birth to six years of age, say the authors from the Universities of Southampton and Oxford.

On the other note, a significant correlation was found between healthy specialty store exposure and BMD of children at four or six, whereas no direct correlation was found for fast food outlets and supermarkets to that bone measure at that given age group, the paper reports.

For the newborns, bone density and bone mineral content decreased with the number of fast food outlets in their immediate neighbourhood. However, it was noticed that fast food stores in locality did not affect much but the difference lied due to increasing neighbourhood exposure to healthy speciality stores, such as greengrocers. The results of the study provide a few evidence to support the introduction of zoning policies to increase the number of healthier food retailers and to decrease the number of fast food outlets within neighbourhoods. ‘These findings suggest that the exposure of mothers and children to more healthy food environments might optimise childhood bone development through its influence on the quality of the maternal diet and dietary choices during childhood, ‘ said study co-author Cyrus Cooper, Chair of the global Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) Committee of Scientific Advisors.

The study appears in the journal Osteoporosis global.