Pizza and childhood obesity

Health News

Mel Brooks was onto something when made Pizza the Hutt one of the villains in Spaceballs. Health policy researchers said Monday that children consume more than 400 extra calories on average on days when they eat pizza. Children also consume three extra grams of fat and 134 extra milligrams of salt compared to non-pizza days. Meanwhile, teenagers ingest over 600 calories, five grams of fat, and 484 milligrams of salt when pizza is on the menu. The link between pizza and childhood obesity was explored in the journal Pediatrics because of the former’s popularity among the children. On a regular day 22% of children aged 6-19 eat pizza – compared to 14% of toddlers and 13% of Americans in general.

Researchers from the University of Illinois led by Lisa M. Powell studied the effect of pizza on over 14,000 children aged 2-11 and teens aged 12-19 who participated in the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The responses that listed all the foods and beverages children consumed in the prior 24 hours showed that younger children eat 83 calories and teens 143 calories worth of pizza daily – or 5% and 7% of total daily calories. On days when they eat pizza, the dish makes up 22% and 26% of children’s and teenagers’ calories, respectively. Those numbers are reflective of pizza consumption in 2009 and 2010, and while high, they are actually 25% and 16% lower for children and adolescents than the figures for 2003 and 2004.

The ubiquity of pizza as well as its tastiness and price make a staple of children’s snacks and meals. “It’s constantly being thrust at them,” assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa in Canada Dr. Yoni Freedhoff said. “From school cafeterias to weekly pizza days in schools without cafeterias to birthday parties to group events to pizza night with the parents to pizza fund-raising — it’s difficult to escape. But of course, that doesn’t make it healthy.” Moreover, the calorie count goes up regardless of the source. “There were no differences in impact on calories and nutrients between whether youths ate pizza from stores or from fast food, suggesting that efforts to improve the nutritional content of pizza should include pizza from all sources,” said Powell.

However, when children ate pizza from the school cafeteria their caloric intake didn’t increase, suggesting that school pizza may be healthier, which is what all pizzas should aspire to be. “Given that pizza remains a highly prevalent part of children’s diet, we need to make healthy pizza the norm,” Powell said. “Efforts by food producers and restaurants to improve the nutrient content of pizza, in particular by reducing its saturated fat and sodium [salt] content and increasing its whole-grain content, could have quite broad reach in terms of improving children’s diets.”

Director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis Connie Diekman said pizza can be made healthier with whole-wheat or white whole-wheat for the crust, more fruits and vegetables in place of meat, and less cheese or more strongly-flavored cheese. “The big take-away is that the overall balance of kids’ diets is not as healthful as it needs to be. If kids love pizza, assess how it fits into the whole day so that it doesn’t take calories away from other food groups,” she said. Freedhoff added that pizza from the store should be consumed moderately, and volunteer his own recipe: part skim-milk mozzarella, basil, onion, garlic, and no meat. Clinical dietitian with the Center for Healthy Weight & Nutrition at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio Alexis Tindall also recommends to “make it at home, instead of ordering it out where you don’t have any control over how it’s made. When we make it at home we can choose healthier toppings, increase the vegetables and lean proteins, and put less cheese…Pizza doesn’t have to be just pepperoni and cheese.”

According to Powell, children should not eat more than 1 or 2 pizza slices for a meal and should accompany that with salad. “Parents should aim to curb pizza consumption, particularly as a snack where it was shown to have the largest adverse impact on children’s [calorie] intake, and they should put their pizza dollars toward healthier brands,” she said. Additionally, she advises parents to discuss pizza consumption with doctors and nutrition counselors.

Related Read:

Pizza prescription: Study recommends less for kids.

Pizza cuts into kids’ health, study finds.

Experts zero in on pizza as primer target in war on childhood obesity.

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