{"id":2637,"date":"2009-01-02T20:29:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-02T20:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.willclower.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/do-the-math.html"},"modified":"2016-09-21T10:24:52","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T14:24:52","slug":"do-the-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=2637","title":{"rendered":"Do the Math"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Fast food + nearby schools = fat kids <\/strong><\/p>\n

We can wring our hands about WHY this is true — whether it’s the loss of recess or addition of too many video games, but the bottom line is this: youth who study just a short walk from a fast-food outlet eat fewer fruit and vegetables, drink more soda and are more likely to be obese than students at other schools.<\/p>\n

This is from research published on Tuesday, and includes a whopping 500,000 middle and high school adolescents.<\/p>\n

There are many factors that impact the health status of our kids. It would be a mistake to say, “Oh, you can’t blame the restaurants, it’s a problem with the home, it’s a problem with exercise, it’s a problem with peer pressure, blah blah blah.”<\/p>\n

In fact, it’s a problem with all of those, and each should be dealt with, including the tendency of fast food franchises to perch in proximity to our schools.<\/p>\n

“We’ve basically discovered that kids who are going to a school that is near a fast-food restaurant have a higher chance of being overweight and obese than kids who are at a school that is not near a fast-food restaurant,”<\/em> said Brennan Davis of Azusa Pacific University in California, whose study appears in the American Journal of Public Health<\/em>.<\/p>\n

U.S. youth obesity rates have tripled since 1980. The government says 32 percent of U.S. children are overweight and 16 percent are obese.<\/p>\n

Consumer groups have pushed for laws such as July’s moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in certain Los Angeles neighborhoods, while the food industry often maintains that a lack of exercise is more to blame.<\/p>\n

The researchers said it is not yet clear whether their results apply to other parts of the United States, and this should be studied further.<\/p>\n

But their study adds to prior research showing that fast-food restaurants tend to be clustered near schools.<\/p>\n

“Students who were exposed to nearby fast food have a higher level of body mass index — they weigh more. They are more likely to be overweight and obese,” <\/em>he said.<\/p>\n

They also found that students whose schools were located near-fast food restaurants eat fewer servings of vegetables and fruits, and drink far more soda than students at schools not located near fast-food restaurants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fast food + nearby schools = fat kids We can wring our hands about WHY this is true — whether it’s the loss of recess or addition of too many … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[494,307],"tags":[299],"class_list":["post-2637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-childhood-obesity","tag-fast-food"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Qv5g-Gx","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2598,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=2598","url_meta":{"origin":2637,"position":0},"title":"Location, Location, Location","author":"Will Clower","date":"March 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It turns out that the three most important aspects of purchasing a new home, can also impact your weight!This article in the NYTimes indicates that ninth graders whose schools are within a block of a fast-food outlet are more likely to be obese than students whose schools are a quarter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?cat=494"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2163,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=2163","url_meta":{"origin":2637,"position":1},"title":"Calories on menus don’t affect kids’ food choices | Reuters","author":"Will Clower","date":"February 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Requiring fast-food restaurants in New York City to post calorie counts on menus did little to cut the number of calories children and teens consumed, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.They found that children and adolescents noticed the calories posted on the menu but the calorie counts made little difference in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?cat=494"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/mlcmmqmgggev.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-RmtHeNlEK1g\/TVqoiOZLApI\/AAAAAAAAC7g\/BSPvJ7-E3Ds\/s320\/FastFoodFrownieFace.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2368,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=2368","url_meta":{"origin":2637,"position":2},"title":"It’s not about the burger","author":"Will Clower","date":"June 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Good food IS good health. That includes things like normal hamburger, or other kinds of meats (THIS hamburger, of course, has enough calories to feed Rwanda). That said, researchers from Germany, Spain and Britain who studied data on 50,000 children across the world found that kids who ate burgers were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?cat=494"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bookmark and Share","src":"https:\/\/mlcmmqmgggev.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/v2\/lg-share-en.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2037,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=2037","url_meta":{"origin":2637,"position":3},"title":"McDonald’s Makes Me Grumpy For A Very Weird Reason","author":"Will Clower","date":"July 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The McDonald's Happy Meal (I've also heard it expressed as the Micky D's Crappy Meal, but that's another subject ... ahem).\u00a0I think this product and that company both have a definite image problem, and want to avoid looking like they are feeding the problem of childhood obesity (pun only partially\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?cat=494"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/mlcmmqmgggev.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mopo.ca\/uploaded_images\/too-many-happy-meals-thumb-730153.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2034,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=2034","url_meta":{"origin":2637,"position":4},"title":"How To Prevent Childhood Obesity? Remember What You Have Forgotten","author":"Will Clower","date":"July 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Get this. The calories that kids eat away from home has increased from 23.4 percent to 33.9 percent between 1977 and 2006.Those take-out foods are high in sugar and salt and synthetics and, oh yeah, calories.\u00a0\"We found that ... kids eat an increasing number of calories outside the home,\" said\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?cat=494"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/mlcmmqmgggev.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-iSVETMKigI4\/TjFZmp5md6I\/AAAAAAAADQA\/lF7Jbi4hgV0\/s320\/ChildObesity.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2634,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=2634","url_meta":{"origin":2637,"position":5},"title":"Legislating Food Compliance","author":"Will Clower","date":"January 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's the question:Should we look at legislating junk food advertisments aimed at kids?I understand regulation of cigarette ads to children, because nicotene is addictive and tobacco is lethal ... a terrible combination that mystifies anyone who asks, \"and WHY is a lethal addictive carcinogen on the market at all?\"But having\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?cat=494"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3632,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2637\/revisions\/3632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}