A recent study has uncovered potential health impacts of children consuming highly processed foods.
Researchers from England’s Imperial College London found that higher consumption of ultra-processed foods, or UPFs, can enhance the risk of obesity. UPFs make up a large portion of children’s diets, researchers discovered. These foods are heavily processed during production. They include frozen pizzas, sodas, some mass-produced packaged bread and some pre-made meals.
The findings were published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
“We often ask why obesity rates are so high among British children and this study provides a window into this. Our findings show that an exceptionally high proportion of their diet is made up of ultra-processed foods, with one in five children consuming 78% of their calories from ultra-processed foods,” public health professor Christopher Millett at Imperial College London said in a press release.
“Through a lack of regulation, and enabling the low cost and ready availability of these foods, we are damaging our children’s long-term health. We urgently need effective policy change to redress the balance, to protect the health of children and reduce the proportion of these foods in their diet.”
Obesity rates among American children are also high. It’s affected 14.4 million children and adolescents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Millett and the authors note that childhood eating habits can extend into adulthood. This can possibly put kids on a path toward obesity and adverse mental and physical health outcomes, such as diabetes and cancer.
In the new study, researchers used data from British children who participated in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Following children beginning at age 7 and ending at 24, researchers collected body mass index (BMI), weight, waist circumference and body fat measurements. Food diaries recorded foods and drinks cohort participants consumed over three days at ages 7, 10 and 13.
Participants were categorized into five groups based on how much UPFs they consumed. The diet of the lowest consumption group had 23.2% UPFs in their total diet. The highest consumption group’s diet was 67.8% of UPFs. Fruit-based drinks, sodas, pre-made meals, and mass-produced packaged bread and cakes were major sources in the highest consumption group. Minimally processed foods and drinks, such as plain yogurt, water and fruit, were the focus of the lowest consumption group’s diets.
On average, children in the higher consumption group had more rapidly growing BMI, weight, waist circumference and body fat from adolescence and early adulthood.
“During the 17 years of follow-up, we saw a very consistent increase in all measures of unhealthy weight among children who consumed greater amounts of ultra-processed foods as part of their diet,” research fellow and lead author Kiara Chang said. “Their BMI, weight gain, and body fat gain was much quicker than those children consuming less ultra-processed foods. We actually see it making a difference from as young as 9 years old, between those consuming the most compared with those consuming the least ultra-processed foods.”
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