You really know that the food that is best for the body is the one that is little treated and tampered with. We have heard it countless times: Eat your fish. Five a day is good for you. Still, it is quite often tempting with a frozen pizza, a bag of potato chips and a hamburger. Are we really hurt by this? Yes, researchers say. In a new study, they have looked at what the intake of ultra-processed food can do to children. And the results are not very uplifting. – Although “ready-made food” is a simple solution, our research shows how important it is to prepare healthy meals. Parents make decisions that affect their children’s future, says Jacqueline Vernarelli in a press release. The findings were recently presented at an annual conference in the United States, called Nutrition 2022 live online. A need for knowledge Previous research on ultra-processed foods has, among other things, shown an increased risk of cardiovascular disease among adults. Those who consume a lot of ultra-processed foods and drinks have a higher risk, especially for overweight and obesity. Photo: Colourbox.com Also among pregnant women you can see that such food affects the fetus and its development. But this is one of the first studies that has looked at the effect such food can have on the younger generation growing up. The results showed that children aged 3–5 years, who had a high intake of ready-processed food, had poorer motor skills than others. At the age of 15, the researchers also saw that the young people were in physically worse shape. – Healthy eating habits and keeping the body in good physical shape often start at a very young age. Our findings point to the need to teach families about how to reduce the use of ultra-processed foods in a cost-effective way, says Vernarelli. Government Dietary Guidelines Eat at least five servings of vegetables, fruits and berries each day. Eat whole grains every day. Let low-fat dairy products be part of your daily diet. Eat fish for dinner two to three times a week. Also feel free to use fish as a spread. Vary between lean and oily fish Choose lean meats and lean meat products. Limit the amount of processed meat and red meat. Choose cooking oils, liquid margarine and soft margarine, rather than hard margarine and butter. Choose low-salt foods and limit the use of salt in cooking and on food. Avoid foods and beverages with a lot of sugar on a daily basis. Choose water as a thirst quencher. Have a good balance between how much energy you get in you through food and drink, and how much you consume through activity. Source: The Norwegian Directorate of Health Intake and performance matched To find the connection, the researchers used information from a US health survey, conducted in 2012. The survey consisted of both questions and physical tests. More than 1500 children aged 3–15 years participated. In the study, ultra-processed food was defined using a food ranking program. The category includes potato chips, cereals, sweets, soft drinks, canned soups, pizzas and burgers. For children under the age of five, the researchers used movement development as a measure of physical fitness. The analysis revealed that the children with the worst motor skills consumed an average of 273 daily calories more of the ultra-processed food compared to those who did best on the tests. In the older children, fitness was measured. Here, the young people with the worst results ate 226 more daily calories of ultra-processed food. Potato chips are one of the products found under the list of ultra-processed foods. Photo: Ole Andreas Bø / news Disrupts the body’s mechanisms Marit Kolby is a college lecturer at Oslo Nye Høyskole. She is a food scientist, nutritional biologist and author. Right now she is up to date with a new book that addresses this very topic. Kolby is not surprised by the results of the new study. – We humans only consist of the food we have eaten, so if the food is of poor quality, it becomes strange to think that the body can develop optimally. Several studies have shown that diets dominated by ultra-processed foods have poorer nutritional value, she tells news. She further explains that the ultra-processed food affects a wide range of health problems. Everything from obesity to inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and depression. – This indicates that such food disrupts our built-in mechanisms that should keep us healthy. Such as appetite and weight regulation, regulation of glucose, a favorable intestinal flora, as well as proper signaling in the brain – to name a few. Kolby believes more research is needed in this area. Especially in Norway. It is quite obvious that the ultra-processed food is a very poor substitute for the food it displaces, says Marit Kolby. Photo: Oslo Nye Høyskole – A ticking bomb The nutritional biologist says that in this country very little research has been done on ultra-processed food. Therefore, it is difficult to know how much we actually eat. – But we know that more than half of the items we buy in the store are ultra-processed. And that we spend about half of our food budget on such products. I would think that we are high on the statistics, because we spend so much of our money on such food. Marit Kolby believes that it is a ticking health bomb, and that there is a risk that the rising generation will have major problems with their health because of this. – Do we have to have such foods on our store shelves? – No, we must not. But it is unrealistic for most people to avoid ultra-processed products altogether. We can tolerate some excesses as long as the amount is kept down, she says. The American study is a cross-sectional study, and has not yet been peer-reviewed, as the findings were presented at a seminar prior to publication.
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Is ultra-processed food bad for children? Yes, researchers believe – affected the physical form negatively – news Trøndelag
