A recent report by UCLA Centre for Health Policy Research reveals that most Californian kids aged between 2 and 5 eat fast food at least once a week.
The findings are based on several Health Interview Survey (CHIS), which looked into the dietary habits of young children, especially junk food consumption, sugar-sweetened beverages, fruits and vegetables, and what control parents had on their choice of fast food.
The UCLA report shows that in the years 2007 and 2009 around two third of the kids surveyed consumed fast food once in a week. Nearly 29 percent of the children were found to have fast food twice or more a week and more than 10 percent of the kids were found to be severely addicted to fast food with three intakes or more in a week. In fact, Latino kids were found to be more prone to fast food.
About one in every three children in the U.S. suffers from obesity that later leads to several other health hazards like high blood pressure, Type 2 Diabetes and heart diseases, according to a recent blog post on Kqed.
"A weekly happy meal is an unhappy solution, especially for toddlers," said Susan Holtby, the lead author of the study and a senior researcher at the Public Health Institute, in a statement. "Hard-working, busy parents need support to make healthy food selections for their kids."
Most young kids in the U.S. don't eat fruits and nuts on a regular basis, the UCLA report reveals. Only 57 percent of the parents surveyed said that their children had five servings of fruit and vegetables the previous day. The only good news on the survey is the steady decline in the usage of soda that mostly accompanies the fast food servings.
According to the researchers, soda consumption was noticed to be on the higher side (more than 40 percent) among the U.S. kids around a decade ago. In 2009 the rate of drinking soda dropped down to 16 percent, reveals a recent post on sacbee.
The researchers state that the study data is more like a warning and requires much more initiatives both from the parents and government's end to support healthy food habits. The parents need to spend more time on initiating good food habits among toddlers because the same behavior is likely to continue in their teens.
The government needs to introduce effective policies and launch health programs advocating the harmful effects of fast food.
"I think there are ways to tie the public dollars to policies that promote healthy policies," said Holtby in a statement. [Public] schools are a really good place to start because they are implemented in one large arena."
