Originally published September 4 2005
School children are exposed to poor-quality food, study says
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
More and more fast food chain restaurants are popping up near schools within a walking distance, according to a new study posted on WebMD.com.
More and more, fast-food restaurants are staking out locations within easy walking distance of schools, exposing children to poor-quality foods, according to a new study.
The findings add weight to the growing argument that the availability of high-calorie, low-nutrition fast foods play a role in the nationwide epidemic of obesity among children.
That's the conclusion of a new study by researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and the Harvard School of Public Health.
The study appears in the American Journal of Public Health.
Researchers show that on average fast-food restaurants were located less than 1 mile away from any school in Chicago.
They estimate that fast-food restaurants were three to four times more likely to be within less than 1 mile from a school than what would have been expected had the restaurant been distributed throughout the city in a way unrelated to schools.
"This means that five days a week, we are sending our school children into environments where there is an abundance of high-calorie, low-nutritional-quality, inexpensive food," says researcher Bryn Austin, MD, of Children Hospital Boston's division of adolescent and young adult medicine, in a news release.
Nationwide during the past three decades, fast-food retail sales have increased 900%, from $16.1 billion in 1975 to $153.1 billion in 2004, according to the study.
Previous research done by the authors in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that almost a third of children and teens eat fast food on a typical day.
Compared with days in which children do not eat fast food, they consume more calories, fat, and sugar and fewer fruit and vegetables, write the authors.
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