New study on eating habits of children in US says that they eat foods that add extra calories while away from home. Compared to children 30 years ago, they eat 179 calories more every day. The study was carried out by a doctoral student at University of North Carolina, Jennifer M. Poti. Fast food culture including the take away food joints are contributing to the rise of calorie intake in kids.
In the comparison, the children have been found to eat relatively constant calorie level when at home but they eat much more calories outside. These findings are expected to help parents in persuading their kids to reduce the intake of harmful calories. The truth of these findings becomes certain with the statistic of rise in obesity of children. Childhood obesity has risen three-folds in the last three decades. CDC data states that around 18 percent of American children between the age of 12 and 19 are obese.
Data from four national surveys spanning a period of 1977 to 2006 were evaluated to come to the conclusions drawn in the study. This particular research was different from others in making a distinction between food eaten at home and elsewhere. The overall percentage of calories eaten at home was 23.4 percent around 30 years ago and rose to 33.9 percent in 2006. These findings should be a wakeup call to parents for looking after their children’s diet. They should specify the amount of foods their kids eat outside of home.
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