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Forsaking healthy, home-cooked
meals, more Americans than ever are gorging on calorie-rich, nutrient-poor
snacks, sodas and sweets when the dinner bell rings, according to three
studies tracking changes in the U.S. diet over the past 25 years.
Americans have increased their
energy intake of French fries, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, pizza and Mexican
food as part of their meals," conclude researchers led by Dr. Samara
Joy Neilsen of the University of North Carolina.
Overall, they found that total
(food) energy intake has increased over the past 20 years, with shifts
away from meals to snacks and from at-home to away-from-home.
We know in the United States
that obesity is on the rise, and we know that this is because of two things -- we're
increasing our energy intake across all the age groups as well as decreasing
our physical activity.
Focusing on changes in diet
researchers compared the results of national U.S. government food consumption
surveys conducted in 1977-78, 1989-91 and 1994-96.
In every age group, more and more Americans now consume a large proportion
of their daily food intake via snacks rather than sit-down meals, favoring
quick, easy -- often non-nutritious -- foods like potato chips, cookies,
pizza and other high-calorie treats.
The proportion of energy from
restaurant/fast food has increased considerably since the late 1970s.
Among 19- to 39-year-olds, away-from-home food consumption just about
doubled between 1977 and 1996, with
28% of young Americans saying they had eaten out on any given day in 1996,
compared to just 14% two decades previously.
Another study, presented by
Dr. Alanna Moshfegh of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, broke the survey
findings down even further, looking at changes in the popularity of our
favorite -- and not-so-favorite -- foods. She found steep increases in
consumption of pizza, chocolate and hamburgers, in children as well as
adults.
Children are making a definite
shift away from milk to sodas and sugary drinks. While 90% of 6- to 11-year-olds
in the late 1970s said they had milk on a given day, just 78% could say
so by the mid-1990s. At the same time, daily soda consumption rose in
the same age group from 31% in the 1970s to 46% two decades later.
The war between milk and soda
is indicative of a shift in the U.S. diet, where nutrient-poor "junk
foods" are gradually replacing healthier items such as low-fat milk,
fruits and vegetables. "One is being consumed at the expense of the
other," said the author of a third study, Dr. Ashima Kant of the
City University of New York.
Looking closely at data on
children's responses to the 1988-1994 National Health and Nutrition Examination
Survey, she found that "energy-dense, nutrient-poor" foods now
account for over 30% of American children's
daily energy intake, "with sweeteners and desserts jointly accounting
for nearly 25%."
The population is changing,
there's a faster lifestyle, the mix of restaurants is different today,
the availability of all types of food in all kinds of settings is much
more prominent today.
Annual
Experimental Biology 2002 Conference New Orleans, LA April 22, 2002
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