Eating out at restaurants with children and teens.

T oday’s children are increasingly eating food away from home, including eating at full-service and fast-food restaurants. Concerns have been raised that this increase in eating at fast-food restaurants has taken place at the same time as the increase in obesity across the country. A recent study in the journal found that consuming food from a fast-food restaurant was associated with an increase in 126 total calories for children and 310 daily calories for adolescents for that day. Consuming food from a regular full-service restaurant was associated with an increase of 160 calories for children and 267 calories for adolescents. So this means that, compared with a meal at home, eating at either a fast-food restaurant or a regular full-service restaurant means an increase in calories each day that kids eat out. This study also showed that eating a meal at a restaurant was associated with a higher intake of sugar, fat, and sodium, particularly when eating at a fast-food restaurant. There are several factors that make fast-food access easy for children and adolescents. Fast-food restaurants are often located in a higher density near schools, particularly near high schools and those in low-income neighborhoods. Having a fast-food restaurant near a high school has been linked to increased obesity.