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Reduction in Food Away from Home Is Associated with Improved Child Relative Weight and Body Composition Outcomes and This Relation Is Mediated by Changes in Diet Quality


The prevalence of obesity and overweight is increasing every year in the United States. One of the main factors that contribute to this is increase caloric intake. Due to several environmental and societal changes, earing away from home is increasing every year since the mid 1970s and nowadays it became part of the American diet. People tend to consume more convenient food and eat at restaurants, most of the times these food items differ from the food prepared at home in terms of quantity and quality, therefore it is assumed to negatively impact health status.

A study by Altman et al., (2015) aimed to measure the effect of eating food away from home and its association to changes in weight, body composition, and diet quality. They examined 241 child-parent dyads, which completed 16 weeks (family based behavioral weight loss treatment). As part of the treatment, participants need to reduce frequency of eating away from home as one mechanism to reduce consuming low nutrient/high energy diet. The study found that reduction of eating away from home was significantly linked to decrease in BMI and percent body fat, and increase in diet quality.

Because about third of the American caloric consumption daily comes from food eaten away from home, the CDC provides several guidelines to help to incorporate this into healthy meal plan, such as: (Look for lower-fat, lower calorie menu items, use nutrition information to guide food choices, modify a menu item to make it a healthier option, order a vegetarian meal, select fresh fruit for dessert, and focus on food quality not quantity. Further research is needed to measure the effect of type and frequency of eating away from home on anthropometric measurements and diet quality. In addition, strategies need to be developed that helps in reducing eating away from home, such as meal planning and preparation skills.



Altman, M., Holland, J. C., Lundeen, D., Kolko, R. P., Stein, R. I., Saelens, B. E., ... & Wilfley, D. E. (2015). Reduction in Food Away from Home Is Associated with Improved Child Relative Weight and Body Composition Outcomes and This Relation Is Mediated by Changes in Diet Quality. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

CDC. Incorporating Away-From-Home Food into a Healthy Eating Plan (No. 6). National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

AA


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