Eat, drink and be
merry?
Wednesday, April 15,
2009
Fast food and soft drinks may be making children fatter but they
also make them happy. Programs aimed at tackling childhood obesity,
by reducing children's consumption of unhealthy food and drink, are
likely to be more effective if they also actively seek to keep
children happy in other ways, according to Professor Hung-Hao Chang
from National Taiwan University and Professor Rodolfo Nayga from
the University of Arkansas in the US. Their findings are published
in Springer's Journal of Happiness Studies.
Childhood obesity is a major public health issue worldwide. It is
well accepted that unhealthy eating patterns are partly responsible
for the increase in childhood obesity. However, very little is
known about the relationship between fast food and soft drink
consumption and children's happiness.
For the first time, Chang and Nayga looked at the relationship
between unhealthy dietary habits and children's psychological
health. In particular, they studied the effects of fast food and
soft drink consumption on children's body weight and unhappiness.
Using data from the National Health Interview Survey in Taiwan - a
nationwide survey carried out in 2001 – the authors looked at the
fast food and soft drink consumption, body weight and level of
happiness of 2,366 children aged between 2 and 12 years old. Fast
food included French fries, pizza and hamburgers; soft drinks
included soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages.
A quarter of the children in the survey sample were overweight or
obese and approximately 19 percent sometimes or often felt unhappy,
sad or depressed. The study's key finding was that children who ate
fast food and drank soft drinks were more likely to be overweight,
but they were also less likely to be unhappy. The authors' analysis
also highlighted a number of factors influencing children's body
weight, eating patterns and happiness. For example, mothers'
consumption of fast food and soft drinks predicted her child's
eating habits. Those children who ate fast food were more likely to
also consume soft drinks. Children from lower income households
were more likely to have unhealthy dietary habits and be overweight
or obese.
The authors conclude: "Our findings suggest that consumption of
fast food and soft drinks can result in a trade-off between
children's objective (i.e. obesity) and subjective (i.e.
unhappiness) well-being. Policies and programs that aim to improve
children's overall health should take these effects on children's
objective and subjective well-being into account to facilitate the
reduction in childhood obesity without sacrificing children's
degree of happiness."
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Springer
Thanks to Springer for this
article.