McCurtain Memorial Hospital
N u t r i t i o n a n d Yo u r H e a l t h
Ar ti c l e s for Te e ns
Abb y L. Br idges , RD/ LD, MS
Is Fast Food Really a Problem?
Eating a lot of fast food is bad, especially as a teenager. Not exactly breaking news but, besides the extra fat and
salt in casual restaurant fare, what's so
horrible about a combo meal? Well, burgers and fries are loaded with
"discretionary calories." Basically, the
average diet is divided into essential and
extra calories. Essential calories provide
the good stuff from fruits, veggies, milk
products, and whole grains. Extra or
discretionary calories are okay in moderation (say, 100-300 calories a day) for
things like soda, salad dressing, sweets,
and fatty fast-foods (1). The problem is
the average trip to the drive-thru can
easily provide you 1000 calories (2,3).
That's a cheeseburger, large fries, and a
Coke- most of which go into the extra
calorie category.
A recent study found that fast-food
consumption (extra calories) replaces
eating fruits, vegetables, and milk products that contain vitamins and nutrients
(essential calories) (4). So, when you
bite into that Big Mac, you are cutting
out healthier options. But, you might be
surprised to learn that fast-food isn’t to
blame for everything. It turns out even
teens who don’t eat fast-food still eat
junk food and aren’t consuming the
same essential calories that fast-food
fans are missing. On average, adolescents ages 12-19 eat 648 discretionary
calories per day! That’s one-third to onehalf of your daily energy intake (4)!
Less than 10% of teens get the recommended servings of vegetables. Fruit
consumption is not much better with
only an estimated 6-21% of teens consuming some sort of produce. Even the
suggested servings for grains isn’t being
met with only about 36-59% of adolescents getting the recommended amount
(4).
Teens who eat fast-food
and teens who don’t both
come up short on a
healthy diet.
“A good diet will help
you do better in school,
perform better in sports,
and feel better in
general!”
So, what does that mean to you? As a
teen, you need a lot of healthy nutrients
because your body is growing. A wellbalanced diet will help you in do better
in school, perform better in sports, and
feel better in general! You are also developing eating habits and patterns that
will continue into your adult life. Bad
habits are hard to break, so it’s important that you begin making healthy decisions as early as possible. Unhealthy
diets left unchecked greatly increase
your risk of developing chronic conditions like diabetes or heart disease. You
don’t have to be old to get these diseases,
Sources:
either. Obesity and diabetes rates are
United States Department of Agricul
increasing among teens. Excessive fat
ture. (March 13, 2009). What are
builds up around your heart and other
discretionary calories? http://
vital organs and can cause major probwww.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/
discretionary_calories.html
lems even at a young age.
You can fight back by improving your
daily diet by including the essential calories from fruits, vegetables, whole
grains, low-fat milk products, and lean
meats. Your favorite fast-food and/or
junk food isn’t off limits but keep in
mind how many extra calories it has and
find a way to work that into a healthy
diet. You might have to cut the drivethru meal down to once a week and skip
the gigantic cookie in the lunch line but
your body will thank you for it!
Goulding, M. (2008). Restaurant
report card. from http://
www.menshealth.com
McDonald’s (2009). Nutrition comparison. http://
nutrition.mcdonalds.com.
Sebastian, R. S., Wilkinson, C., &
Goldman, J. D. (2008). US adolescents and mypyramid: Associations
between fast-food consumption and
lower likelihood of meeting recommendations. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 109(2), 226235.