Kids consume more calories, soda when eating out

“We need an environment that promotes healthy rather than unhealthy food and beverage choices,” says Lisa Powell, professor of health policy and administration. Photo: UIC Photo Services

Children and adolescents consume more calories and soda on days they eat at fast-food or full-service restaurants, as compared to days they eat meals at — or from — home.

And the difference is even greater for lower-income children.

“We need an environment that promotes healthy rather than unhealthy food and beverage choices,” said Lisa Powell, professor of health policy and administration in the School of Public Health and lead author of the study.

The study, published online by Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, is the first to look separately at fast-food and full-service restaurants.

The researchers examined calorie intake, diet quality and consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, particularly soda, on days when youngsters ate out, as compared to days they did not.

At restaurants, the researchers found, youths consumed higher amounts of sugar, total fat, saturated fat and sodium. They consumed twice as much soda as compared to when they ate the restaurant food at home.

“We attribute that to the free refills,” Powell said.

They also drank less milk on days when they ate at restaurants, she added.

In earlier studies, Powell and colleagues found that 41 percent of adolescents consume fast food on a given day, for an average of almost 1,000 calories. One-third of children ages 2 to 11 consume fast food on a given day.

The new study showed that on days when adolescents ate fast food, they consumed an additional 309 calories, suggesting they don’t reduce their non-restaurant food intake enough to compensate. Young children took in an additional 126 calories. Full-service dining caused increases of about 267 calories for teens and 160 calories for children.

The researchers found fast food had even greater adverse effects on diet for lower-income children, potentially increasing health disparities.

Lower-income teens who consumed fast food took in more sugar, total fat, saturated fat and sodium than their higher-income peers.

“When lower-income youths are eating fast food, they are choosing more energy-dense, lower quality foods that tend to be higher in fats and sodium and can be purchased cheaply,” said Powell, who conducts her research at UIC’s Institute for Health Research and Policy.

“They are not going to the fast-food restaurant and getting a salad or the healthier turkey sub with lots of veggies.”

Fast food is heavily promoted to children through television ads, the researchers say. Fast-food restaurants tend to cluster around schools and are more prevalent in low-income neighborhoods.

The concern, Powell said, is that kids are consuming fast food too frequently, and not in moderation.

Limiting consumption from restaurants would help “improve diet outcomes among children and youth,” she said.

Better nutritional standards are needed “to improve the range of healthy food options available, in order to turn around the obesity trend.”

The study used data from the three waves of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for the years between 2003 and 2008, which included 4,717 children ages 2 to 11 and 4,699 adolescents ages 12 to 19.

Graduate student Binh T. Nguyen is co-author for the study.

The research was supported in part by the National Cancer Institute and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.