Fast food, soft drinks and candy are often painted as the driving forces behind America's obesity epidemic , but new research suggests there's more to it than that. In fact, according to the study from the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, junk food does not appear to be a leading cause of obesity in the United States.

Rather, the researchers suggest that the blame lies with Americans' overall eating habits -- particularly the amount of food consumed.

But the researchers emphasize that the findings do not give people a free pass to indulge in junk food. It's something else. It's their broader diet or it's their exercise regimen.

Just worked with lab co-director Brian Wansink, PhD, to review the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Household and Nutrition Examination Survey -- a nationally representative sample of approximately 5, adults in the U.

The participants were asked to recall their food intake within the last hour period on two separate occasions. Height and weight were also collected to calculate body mass index BMI. In fact, consumption of soda, candy and fast food was not linked to BMI for 95 percent of the population.

The exception came with those on the extreme ends of the BMI spectrum: the chronically underweight and the morbidly obese. Unlike for children, the effects are still discernable at 0.

The effects are largest for African American mothers and mothers with a high school education or less. For pregnant women, the estimated increase in calories needed to generate this effect is much smaller, only additional calories per day.

The authors conduct several other interesting analyses. First, they explore the effect of other types of restaurants and find that only fast food restaurants affect obesity. Second, they ask whether the future presence of a fast-food restaurant is associated with greater obesity today.

If that were the case, it would suggest that fast food restaurants locate in areas where obesity is trending up, providing an alternative explanation for the paper's findings. However, the authors find that only current fast food locations matter. Overall, the study suggests that proximity to fast food significantly increases the risk of obesity.

One possible explanation is that proximity to fast food reduces the costs of fast food, principally travel costs. A second explanation is that easier access to fast food tempts consumers who have self-control problems.

The fact that the effects are larger for teens and fall off more quickly with distance suggests that travel costs are more important for teens than for pregnant women.

The policy implications of these findings are potentially important. As the authors conclude, "policies restricting access to fast food near schools could have significant effects on obesity among school children, but similar policies restricting the availability of fast food in residential areas are unlikely to have large effects on adults.

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Do Fast Food Restaurants Contribute to Obesity? Summary of working paper Related Researchers Janet Currie. Aim to prepare a home-cooked meal for your children whenever possible--and, even better, let them help you with the preparation so they can learn firsthand what it is like to experience healthy cooking.

Studies that have looked at the frequency of home meal preparation have found that people who eat more home-cooked meals are less likely to gain weight.

Vikraman S, Fryar CD, Ogden CL. Caloric intake from fast food among children and adolescents in the United States, — NCHS Data Brief No. By Yasmine S. Ali, MD, MSCI Yasmine Ali, MD, is board-certified in cardiology.

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There were no box mixes or pre-made items. Meals had to be planned ahead every day. People really had to work for their food! Grab and go meals were unheard of!

Coincidentally, the obesity rates were much less years ago. You can find a fast food restaurant every time you turn the corner. You can choose from greasy burgers, crunchy tacos or a sugary drink at most intersections.

It is not necessary to plan your meals ahead, cook or even shop because you have a variety of foods right there at your fingertips. These quick and easy foods are also cheap, which appeals to so many Americans.

You can order dollar cheeseburgers, dollar sodas and supersize items for just pennies. People see a value in cheap food and get it with fast food.

People often claim it is cheaper to eat at a restaurant than prepare a meal at home. Most Americans are overscheduled and overcommitted. They run from activity to activity and do not make time to plan or prepare meals.

It is just too easy to grab fast food on the way home from work, or treat the kids to a thick milkshake after a busy day at soccer practice.

Having fast food everywhere makes this very easy. Unfortunately, people do not know the consequences of fast food. They are unaware how the extra fat in their diet can lead to cardiovascular disease. They do not realize the supersized fries may be the reason why their pants are tight.

They forget the recommendation to eat a low sodium diet, so their blood pressure rises. There is no easy answer. Obesity can be caused by a combination of fast food and the environment people live in today.

Many Americans eat out every day! If that is you, make a plan to cut down and prepare a meal or two at home and see how it goes. The key to this is planning ahead. It may take a little time to do this, but just start one day at a time.

Think about your schedule in advance. Sit down on Sunday and determine what you have going on for the week. On your crazy days when you do not have extra time to prepare a meal in advance, have some quick healthy options ready to go:.

Try to make those visits few and far between. When you do go out, here are a few tips:. Make a plan this month to limit fast food.

You certainly do not have to cut it out altogether, but focus on small improvements as much as you can. Just by packing your lunch a few days a week, you can consume significantly less fat and calories.

As it becomes easier for you, make more changes. The prevalence of obesity increased consistently with frequency of fast-food consumption Table 3. After adjusting for potential confounding demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related variables, the odds of being obese were even higher.

Studies reported in the literature agree that fast food is consumed frequently in the United States and that prevalence of fast food consumption is increasing; however, direct comparisons with our results are difficult because studies have varied by year, population, method of data collection, and question structure.

We found a strong association between fast-food consumption and obesity prevalence among respondents. In addition, both studies used self-reported body weight and height to calculate BMI, and the known measurement error associated with these self-reported measures may have also contributed to this inconsistency.

Similar to what has been reported in the literature 12,13,20 , we found regular fast-food consumption to be consistently associated with age and sex in both the bivariate and multivariate analyses. Younger adults and men showed higher prevalence of regular fast-food consumption.

However, after accounting for age and sex, we found no other demographic associations with regular fast-food consumption. Paul, Minnesota, metropolitan area. Limited time, good taste, eating with friends and family, and cost were the most prevalent reasons among a sample of college students from a large Midwestern university Using a population-based sample of adults in Minnesota, Dave et al 20 found that perceived convenience of fast food and a dislike of cooking were significantly related to frequency of fast-food consumption; however, perceived healthfulness of fast food was not related to its consumption.

Our results and those of others suggest that future, more detailed investigations into the reasons people frequent fast-food restaurants and how these reasons may vary among demographic subpopulations could contribute to public health practice by suggesting viable alternatives to fast foods.

The major strength of this study is that it provides unique population-based estimates of fast-food consumption specifically among Michigan adults and confirms that in Michigan, similar to the United States and a few other states for which data are available, food from fast-food restaurants contributes significantly to the population's dietary intake.

Because the conclusions from this study are based on statistical associations, we are confident that any sources of bias that may be present will not result in a change in these findings. Lastly, our results should be interpreted with caution because of the correlational nature of the associations and because of the limits in identifying all potential confounders in the survey.

Making nutritional information more readily available and easy to use, including providing easy-to-read calorie labels on menus and menu boards at fast-food restaurants, may be a way to help consumers who are already inclined to use nutritional information when ordering.

We thank Larry Hembroff, PhD, and the staff of the Office for Survey Research, Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University for their excellence in conducting the Michigan BRFS. This publication was supported by cooperative agreement no. Corresponding Author: Beth Anderson, MPH, Michigan Department of Community Health, Townsend, PO Box , Lansing, MI Telephone: E-mail: andersonb michigan.

Author Affiliations: Sarah Lyon-Callo, Christopher Fussman, Gwendoline Imes, Michigan Department of Community Health, Lansing, Michigan.

Ann P. Rafferty was affiliated with the Michigan Department of Community Health during data analysis and initial drafting. Abbreviation: CI, confidence interval.

c Calculated by χ 2. e Calculated by Wald F test. f Urbanicity was based on county-defined metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas a Reported that they go to fast-food restaurants at least once per month.

The next questions are about eating out. How often do you usually go to a fast-food restaurant? When you go to a fast-food restaurant, what is the main reason you choose this type of a restaurant instead of another type? When you go to a fast-food restaurant, do you usually eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a snack?

When you go to a fast-food restaurant do you usually order a meal package or individual items? When you go to a fast-food restaurant. do you usually eat in the restaurant or take out?

do you usually go with family, friends, coworkers, or by yourself? Sometimes fast-food restaurants have information available about the nutritional contents of their foods. Is this type of nutritional information available at the fast-food restaurants you usually go to? How often does this nutritional information help you decide what to order?

Would you say. Some fast-food restaurants are including healthier items on their menu. On a usual basis, how likely are you to order healthier food items? Would you say that you are. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH Fast-Food Consumption and Obesity Among Michigan Adults. Beth Anderson, MPH; Ann P. Rafferty, PhD; Sarah Lyon-Callo, MA, MS; Christopher Fussman, MS; Gwendoline Imes, MS, RD Suggested citation for this article: Anderson B, Rafferty AP, Lyon-Callo S, Fussman C, Imes G.

PEER REVIEWED Abstract Introduction Consumption of meals eaten away from home, especially from fast-food restaurants, has increased in the United States since the s.

Back to top Introduction The prevalence of obesity in the United States has increased dramatically during the past few decades and is now a major public health concern 1.

Back to top Methods We analyzed data from the Michigan Behavioral Risk Factor Survey MiBRFS for this study. Back to top Acknowledgments We thank Larry Hembroff, PhD, and the staff of the Office for Survey Research, Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University for their excellence in conducting the Michigan BRFS.

Back to top Author Information Corresponding Author: Beth Anderson, MPH, Michigan Department of Community Health, Townsend, PO Box , Lansing, MI Rockville MD : Office of the Surgeon General; Michigan BRFS annual tables.

Michigan Department of Health; Accessed March 25, Kant AK, Graubard BI. Secular trends in patterns of self-reported food consumption of adult Americans: NHANES to NHANES Am J Clin Nutr ;84 5 Putnam J, Allshouse J, Kantor LS.

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A Report to Congress PDF. Accessed February 12, Institute of Medicine. No race or ethnic differences were found among adults aged 60 and over. Figure 2.

Percentage of calories from fast food among adults aged 20 and over, by age and race and ethnicity: United States, — Overall, no difference was observed by income status in the percentage of calories consumed from fast food Figure 3.

However, in the youngest age group, 20—39, the percentage of calories consumed from fast food significantly decreased with increasing income level. Figure 3. Percentage of calories from fast food among adults aged 20 and over, by age and income: United States, — Among adults, the percentage of calories consumed from fast food varied by weight status Figure 4.

The percentage of total daily calories from fast food increased as weight status increased. For each age group, obese adults consumed the highest percentage of their calories from fast food. Figure 4. Percentage of calories from fast food among adults aged 20 and over, by age and weight status: United States, — Total estimates are age adjusted to the projected U.

An earlier report by the U. Department of Agriculture found that the percentage of adults eating fast food increased from the early s to the mids 1. Moreover, previous studies have reported that more frequent fast-food consumption is associated with higher energy and fat intake and lower intake of healthful nutrients 1 , 2.

During —, the highest percentage of calories from fast food was consumed among adults who were aged 20—39 or non-Hispanic black or obese.

Among young non-Hispanic black adults, more than one-fifth of their calories were consumed from fast food. Calories, kilocalories : A calorie is a measure of the energy produced as foods or beverages are burned for energy in the body.

The term calorie is usually used when discussing energy from foods and diets, but the calorie being referred to is actually a kilocalorie 7.

In this report, the term calorie refers to kilocalorie. Fast-food consumption : Respondents were asked to identify where they got each food that they reported in the hour dietary recall.

Poverty income ratio : An index representing the ratio of family income to poverty. The U. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey NHANES were used for these analyses. NHANES is a cross-sectional survey designed to monitor the health and nutritional status of the civilian noninstitutionalized U.

population 9. Dietary information for this analysis was obtained via an in-person hour dietary recall interview in the MEC. Dietary recalls cover intake for any given day, specifically the hour period prior to the dietary recall interview midnight to midnight. The study examined data acquired through the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey NHANES between and Dietary intake, including whether foods and beverages were obtained in fast-food establishments or elsewhere, was evaluated in 4, children who were 2 years to 18 years of age.

They were further categorized as being nonconsumers of fast food 50 percent of the children , low consumers less than or equal to 30 percent of calories from fast foods; 40 percent of the children , or high consumers more than30 percent of calories from fast foods; 10 percent of the children.

The researchers then determined which factors were most related to dietary adequacy and risk for obesity. Popkin said he is certainly no fan of fast-food consumption, but actually knowing where the problem originates is important if we are to invest in solutions that foster healthier habits, including reducing the consumption of sugary drinks and emphasizing more fresh vegetables and fruit.

The study abstract is available online ; the full article is available in print or by online subscription. Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: David Pesci, director of communications , or dpesci unc.

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