What kid doesn't love a good slice of pizza? For that matter, what adult doesn't enjoy an occasional piece too? It may be a beloved alltime snack, however, a new study now reveals that pizza definitely doesn't love children back.
In fact, on days when children eat pizza, they consume an average of 408 additional calories, three additional grams of fat and 134 extra milligrams of salt, when compared to a regular diet.
The study, published online in the journal Pediatrics, delves into the contribution of pizza to childhood obesity because it is so widely consumed. On any given day, 22 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 19 eat pizza, compared to 14 percent of toddlers and 13 percent of Americans overall. The only foods more popular with kids are "grain desserts," such as cakes, cookies and doughnuts.
Health policy researcher Lisa M. Powell, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and her colleagues used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to assess the impact pizza is having on children. Participants of the survey had to complete dietary recalls that list all the foods and drinks they consumed in the previous 24 hours. Responses from 7,443 children between the ages of 2 and 11 and 6,447 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 were involved with the survey.
The results revealed that younger children eat 83 calories worth of pizza each day and teens eat 143 calories a day, on average. Those amounts were high enough to account for 5 percent and 7 percent of the total daily calories, respectively. On the days when pizza is eaten, it makes up 22 percent of a child's calories and 26 percent of a teen's calories.
Researchers used data collected between 2009 and 2010, and though the numbers may seem high, things were far worse in 2003 and 2004. Compared to that period, the figures were 25% lower for younger children and 16% lower for teens. The decline in pizza consumption is seen mainly in younger children who are white or African American, bringing them closer to the consumption levels of Latinos. Children from middle-income and high-income families also ate a little less pizza compared to low-income families.
Pizza cut-backs came mainly at dinnertime, with the calories consumed from pizza dinner falling 40% for younger children and 33% for teens. However, children are eating more pizza for breakfast and as snacks. Researchers found when kids chose pizza as a snack or for breakfast, they consumed 202 more calories over the course of the day. For teens, pizza added an extra 365 calories to the daily total.
Powell and her colleagues stopped short of declaring all out war on the food, but they said its effect on childrens' diets was similar to that of sugary drinks. And in the end they suggested that pizza "should become a target for counseling for the prevention and treatment of obesity in pediatric practice".
