CHILDREN who eat more ultra-processed food are more likely to be overweight or obese as adults, a new 17-year study of more than 9,000 British children born in the 1990s suggests. The researchers also found that ultra-processed foods — including frozen pizzas, fizzy drinks, mass-produced bread and some ready-to-eat meals — accounted for a very high proportion of children’s diets. “One of the key things we uncover here is a dose-response relationship,” said Dr. Eszter Vamos, a senior clinical lecturer in public health medicine at Imperial College London and an author of the study that published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics on Monday, in a news release. “This means that it’s not only the children who eat the most ultra-processed foods have the worst weight gain, but also the more they eat, the worse this gets,” Vamos said. Industrial food processing modifies foods to change their consistency, taste, color and shelf life, using mechanical or chemical alternation to make them more palatable, cheap, appealing and convenient — processes which don’t happen in home-cooked meals, the study noted. Ultra-processed foods tend to be more energy-dense and nutritionally poorer. They often have high levels of sugar, salt and saturated fats but low levels of protein, dietary fiber and micronutrients, and they are aggressively marketed by the food industry, the study said. Gunter Kuhnle, a professor of nutrition and food science at the University of Reading in the U.K., said that link between child health and ultra-processed food was complex, and socio-economic factors likely played a large role. He was not involved in the research. Researchers followed a group of 9,000 children, who were taking part in a wider study, from the age of 7 to 24. Food diaries were completed at age 7, 10 and 13, recording the food and drinks children consumed over three days. Measurements of body mass index (BMI), weight, waist circumference and body fat were also collected over the study period. The children were divided in five groups based on how much ultra-processed food they ate. In the lowest group, ultra-processed foods accounted for one fifth of their total diet, while in the highest group they accounted for more than two-thirds. The researchers found on average, that children in the groups that ate more ultra-processed foods saw a more rapid increase in their BMI, weight, waist circumference and body fat as they grew up. By 24 years of age, those in the highest group had, on average, a higher level of BMI by 1.2 kg/m2, higher body fat by 1.5 percent, weight by 3.7 kg and increased waist circumference by 3.1 cm. The researchers used statistical adjustments to account for other factors such as sex, ethnicity, birth weight and physical activity. The researchers thinks more effective measures are needed to reduce children’s consumption of ultra-processed foods.(SD-Agencies) | 