A little fast food, a big risk to health
The article below was published in the Weekend Australian.
In our neck of the woods (Central Australia), we would accept that if there is a takeaway operating in a remote community, we can generally expect that most people will purchase at least one meal a day from the outlet. Given the foods available in most remote community takeaways its no wonder we see such high rates of diabetes.
A little fast food, a big risk to health
========================================
Adam Cresswell, Health Editor, Weekend Australian 1/1/2004 Page 4.
Just two or three visits a week to a fast-food outlet may be enough to put you under threat of obesity and diabetes.
Despite claims by the fast food industry that its products can form part of a healthy diet, participants in a major US trial showed signs of significant weight gains by eating at fast-food diners more than twice a week. The study, published today in the British medical journal The Lancet, covered more than 3000 young people for 15 years from 1985, to investigate the link between fast-food consumption, weight gain, and insulin resistance.
The researchers found fast-food consumption had "strong associations" with weight gain and insulin resistance indicating that fast food increased the risk of obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
By comparison with the average weight gain among trial participants who ate fast food less than once a week, those who made frequent visits to fast-food outlets - defined as more than two a week - gained an extra 4.5kg and doubled their increase in insulin resistance.
Insulin is a hormone secreted in the pancreas that regulates blood-sugar levels. Insulin resistance leads to elevated blood sugar - the cause of Type 2 or adult-onset diabetes, Australia's sixth-biggest cause of death.
Study co-author David. Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Boston's Children's Hospital in Massachusetts, said the study showed that the more fast food a person ate, the greater the health risk.
"We can't estimate any minimal safe level," Dr Ludwig said.
"Fast food as it is now marketed is inherently unhealthful. Fast food doesn't have any precise definition, but it's a bit like pornography - you know it when you see it.
"As to whether a pizza restaurant is fast food or not, you could debate - but everyone knows a bacon double cheeseburger with fries and Coke at McDonald's is a direct hit."
Like the US, Australia is facing an obesity epidemic. A study in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2003 found 48.2 per cent of men and 29.9 per cent of women were over-weight, while another 19.3 per cent of men and 22.2 per cent of women were obese.
WatchDingo
In our neck of the woods (Central Australia), we would accept that if there is a takeaway operating in a remote community, we can generally expect that most people will purchase at least one meal a day from the outlet. Given the foods available in most remote community takeaways its no wonder we see such high rates of diabetes.
A little fast food, a big risk to health
========================================
Adam Cresswell, Health Editor, Weekend Australian 1/1/2004 Page 4.
Just two or three visits a week to a fast-food outlet may be enough to put you under threat of obesity and diabetes.
Despite claims by the fast food industry that its products can form part of a healthy diet, participants in a major US trial showed signs of significant weight gains by eating at fast-food diners more than twice a week. The study, published today in the British medical journal The Lancet, covered more than 3000 young people for 15 years from 1985, to investigate the link between fast-food consumption, weight gain, and insulin resistance.
The researchers found fast-food consumption had "strong associations" with weight gain and insulin resistance indicating that fast food increased the risk of obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
By comparison with the average weight gain among trial participants who ate fast food less than once a week, those who made frequent visits to fast-food outlets - defined as more than two a week - gained an extra 4.5kg and doubled their increase in insulin resistance.
Insulin is a hormone secreted in the pancreas that regulates blood-sugar levels. Insulin resistance leads to elevated blood sugar - the cause of Type 2 or adult-onset diabetes, Australia's sixth-biggest cause of death.
Study co-author David. Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Boston's Children's Hospital in Massachusetts, said the study showed that the more fast food a person ate, the greater the health risk.
"We can't estimate any minimal safe level," Dr Ludwig said.
"Fast food as it is now marketed is inherently unhealthful. Fast food doesn't have any precise definition, but it's a bit like pornography - you know it when you see it.
"As to whether a pizza restaurant is fast food or not, you could debate - but everyone knows a bacon double cheeseburger with fries and Coke at McDonald's is a direct hit."
Like the US, Australia is facing an obesity epidemic. A study in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2003 found 48.2 per cent of men and 29.9 per cent of women were over-weight, while another 19.3 per cent of men and 22.2 per cent of women were obese.
WatchDingo
posted by Anon at 3:32 PM
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