According to the latest study — Food Choices and Consequences for the Nutritional Status: Insights into Nutrition Transition in a Hospital Community — the lowest number of obese and undernourished children is in the highest income percentile.
Released and published in the latest issue of PLOS ONE (public library of science), the study, conducted among the children of staff at a Delhi hospital, also found that normal nutrition was best correlated with mother’s education and better educated mothers have a better chance of rearing normal weight children. Families of mothers who had moved up in social class in their own lifetime are particularly vulnerable to obesity problems in their children.
“Under-nutrition was common among the economically disadvantaged house-keeping staff, children of doctors tend to be normally nourished and most of the overweight children were kids of nurses,” noted the study.
However, the most interesting part of the study was that “obesity is related to the household diet”.
This is opposed to the popular myth that food fads among children and their tendency to consume ‘junk food’ are responsible for the increasing number of obesity cases among the youth.
“Households with overweight children were consuming more and this was most common in households of nurses,” as per the study, noted Dr. Jacob Puliyel, Delhi-based paediatrician.
This pilot study was conducted among the hospital staff to examine if education of parents operated at the household level to influence dietary choices and the nutritional status of children in a small community of hospital workers.
The per capita intake in the household was used for comparison between families. BMI was used to classify children as underweight, normal weight and overweight.
The results suggested that 80 per cent of underweight children were children of the low income housekeeping staff and there were no obese children in this group.
“The majority of obese children were children of nurses (62.5 per cent). Although the most affluent group was families of doctors, the incidence of malnutrition (under and over nutrition) was least in this group,” said Dr Puliyel.
The study has noted that greater saturated fat intake, reduced fruit and vegetable intake and reduced intake of complex carbohydrates and dietary fibre may have negative consequences.
“These dietary changes along with reduced physical activity result in obesity and an epidemic of non-communicable diseases in developing countries. At the level of the household, the study data shows that the same nutritional transition results in increasing obesity in middle income families probably as families move up the scale from deprivation,” noted the study.
Busts myth that food fads among children and their tendency to consume ‘junk food’ are responsible for the increasing number of obesity cases