One-third of United States kids still eat fast food every day

Kids and adolescents get an average of 12.4 percent of their daily calories from fast food, according to a study published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.

Adolescents especially consumed more calories from on-the-go foods than children: of those ages 12-19, about 17% of their daily calories came from fast food.

Fast food is considered heavy in calories, and scientists have pointed at drive-thru french fries and takeout pizza as contributors to kids being overweight. The survey was done in 2011 and 2012.

– Black, white and Hispanic youth all got roughly the same proportion of their daily calories from fast food, around 12 percent. For Asians, it was just 8 percent.

– There was no significant difference between kids from families of different income levels.

In its report, the NCHS notes that fast food consumption has been linked to higher caloric intake and poorer nutrition habits in children and adolescents.

The researchers also looked into the impact of fast food calorie consumption, taking into consideration the race of the participants. This is the equivalent of what can be found in an average McDonald’s burger.

However, according to the CDC, childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents over the past 30 years.

Though the study’s authors didn’t make any recommendations about what they found, the CDC has previously offered suggestions for reducing the amount of fast foods kids eat on a daily basis, such as regulating the amount of fast food advertising targeted at children. More than two-thirds of fifth-graders in that study reported eating fast food at least once in the previous week. Asian children ate much less fast food than other racial groups.

These numbers, though disheartening, do not indicate a significant shift in fast food consumption over the past 20 years.

Given the high obesity rates in children, officials have forwarded one bill proposal which stated that fast food chain-restaurants should lower the fat and sodium contents as well as the calories in fast food meals that are intended for children.