15-year study links fast food to obesity
Sarah Boseley, health editor - Friday Dec 31, 2004 - The Guardian

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.

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.
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- posted by Andy @ 5:32 PM