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Fast food is definitively bad for your health,
a 15-year study of people's eating habits has confirmed. The
research, published in this week's Lancet medical journal,
should bolster the arguments against those in the food industry
who claim that the obesity is caused not by what you eat but
how little exercise you take.
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Friday December 31, 2004
Although burger bars and chippies
have been heavily criticised, there has been little real
investigation to establish whether
there is a link between fast food and the twin scourges of
obesity and type 2 diabetes, both of which are soaring in the
UK and other affluent nations.
The study was carried out by
researchers in the US, where obesity is further advanced than
it is here - although we are catching up fast. At the turn
of the millennium, 30% of Americans were clinically obese.
The condition is now responsible for an extra 300,000 deaths
and costs $100bn (£51bn) in the US per year.
Mark Pereira,
from the University of Minnesota, and David Ludwig, from the
Children's Hospital, in Boston monitored the diets of more
than 3,000 black and white adults aged between 18 and 30.
They
found that over 15 years, those who went more than twice a
week to fast food restaurants weighed an average of 4.5kg more
than those who went infrequently. They also had a twofold greater
increase in insulin resistance, making them more prone to developing
diabetes.
In a commentary, Arne Astrup of the RVA University
of Copenhagen argued that fast food restaurants should make
their meals healthier. "Although the price may be increased,
at least such changes... can have no adverse health effects," he
wrote.
The Guardian
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