Fast food consumption decreased, CDC data shows
Kids and teens consumed fewer calories from fast foods over the decade that ended in mid-2023, according to newly published CDC data.
Why it matters: It showed the country may have been heading toward healthier options well before Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took office and made cleaning up America's diet a priority.
Where it stands: Kids ages 2 through 19 consumed an average of 11.4% of their daily calories from fast food on a given day between August 2021 and August 2023, according to data from the CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
That's down from an average of nearly 14% in 2013 and 2014, per CDC data.
For adults age 20 and up, average calories from fast food fell from about 14% in 2013 and 2014 to 11.7% during mid-2021 to mid-2023.
Food reported as "restaurant fast food/pizza" on survey responses was considered fast food for these analyses, CDC's data brief said.
Zoom out: About 30% of youth ages 2 through 19 ate fast food on any given day between August 2021 and 2023. That figure exceeded 36% between 2015 and 2018, CDC found.
The research did not identify a difference in fast food consumption between boys and girls, or between adult men and women.
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New York Post
8 hours ago
- New York Post
Body fat, not BMI, ‘far more accurate' at predicting major health risks: study
Body mass index (BMI) may not be the most accurate predictor of death risk. A new study from the University of Florida found that BMI — a measurement that is commonly used to determine whether a person's weight is in a healthy range for their height — is 'deeply flawed' in terms of predicting mortality. Instead, one's level of body fat is 'far more accurate,' concluded the study, which was published this week in the Annals of Family Medicine. To measure participants' body fat, the researchers used a method called bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), which uses a device to measure the resistance of body tissue to a small electrical current. Over a 15-year period, those who had high body fat were found to be 78% more likely to die than those who had healthy body fat levels, researchers found. They were also more than three times as likely to die of heart disease, the study noted. BMI — which is calculated by dividing weight by height, squared — was described as 'entirely unreliable' in predicting the risk of death over a 15-year period from any cause. The study included 4,252 people in the U.S. and pulled data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. BMI should not be relied upon as a 'vital sign' of health, according to senior author Frank Orlando, M.D., medical director of UF Health Family Medicine in Springhill. 6 A new study from the University of Florida found that instead of using body mass index (BMI), one's level of body fat is 'far more accurate' when examining death risk. methaphum – 6 BMI, used to determine whether a person's weight is in a healthy range for their height, was described as 'entirely unreliable' in predicting the risk of death over a 15-year period. Halfpoint – 'I'm a family physician, and on a regular basis, we're faced with patients who have diabetes, heart disease, obesity and other conditions that are related to obesity,' Orlando said in a press release for the study. 'One of the routine measures we take alongside traditional vital signs is BMI. We use BMI to screen for a person having an issue with their body composition, but it's not as accurate for everyone as vital signs are,' he added. BMI has been the international standard for measuring obesity since the 1980s, according to many sources, though some experts have questioned its validity. An individual is considered obese if their BMI is 30 or above, overweight if it is between 25 and 29.9, of 'normal' weight in the range of 18.5 to 24.9, or underweight if lower than 18.5. While BMI is easy to calculate, one of its main limitations is that it cannot distinguish between muscle and fat mass, the researchers noted. 'For example, people who are bodybuilders can really elevate their body mass index,' Orlando said. 'But they're healthy even with a BMI indicating that they're obese.' 6 'People who are bodybuilders can really elevate their body mass index,' senior author Frank Orlando, M.D., said about the limitations of BMI. 'But they're healthy even with a BMI indicating that they're obese.' Maksim Denisenko – 'BMI is just so ingrained in how we think about body fat,' Arch Mainous, PhD, Professor and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Community Health and Family Medicine at the University of Florida, added. 'I think the study shows it's time to go to an alternative that is now proven to be far better at the job.' Other methods, such as a DEXA (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry) scan, may be even more accurate than BIA, but are much more expensive and not as accessible, the researchers noted. 'If you talk to obesity researchers, they're going to say you have to use the DEXA scan because it's the most accurate,' Mainous said in the release. 'And that's probably true. But it's never going to be viable in a doctor's office or family practice.' 6 'We use BMI to screen for a person having an issue with their body composition, but it's not as accurate for everyone as vital signs are,' Orlando said. grinny – Dr. Stephen Vogel — a family medicine physician with PlushCare, a virtual health platform with primary care, therapy and weight management options — echoed the limitations of BMI. 'It has been an easy measurement tool that helps us understand at-risk groups across various populations and demographics, but it doesn't provide accurate data from patient to patient,' the North Carolina-based doctor, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. 'These findings don't challenge the assumptions about BMI — they strengthen the message that new standards, delivered in a consistent and low-cost way, would provide better nuance for the individual when it comes to their overall physical health.' Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post's signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here! Potential limitations 'The main strengths of this study are a better correlation to an individual's risk of morbidity and mortality — however, the limitations lie in the fact that we don't have enough data to determine the right cutoff for these numbers, or to identify the right tools that will be both accurate and precise across the population,' Vogel said. The researchers also acknowledged that body fat percentage thresholds haven't yet been as standardized as BMI and waist circumference. Also, the age range of the participants in the study was limited by the data source. 6 The researchers acknowledged that body fat percentage thresholds haven't yet been as standardized as BMI and waist circumference. VadimGuzhva – 'Future studies should extend this comparison of body fat to BMI in older adults,' the researchers wrote. The study was also limited by focusing only on mortality as an outcome, they noted, without taking into account any developing diseases — such as heart failure or cancer — that could deepen the understanding of body fat as a risk factor. The goal, according to Vogel, is to have a cost-effective, consistent method that can be used across the population with reliable accuracy. 6 According to Dr. Stephen Vogel, 'benefits would come in the form of a more detailed list of information that helps providers and patients make informed decisions about the patient's health, which is ideal.' Anatta_Tan – 'These data will drive better discussions in the doctor's office, as well as public health initiatives with the goal of improving the health of all.' 'Benefits would come in the form of a more detailed list of information that helps providers and patients make informed decisions about the patient's health, which is ideal,' Vogel noted. 'I'm hopeful there's enough buzz around these measures that steps will continue to be taken toward regular implementation.' The researchers are hopeful that once standards are validated, measuring body fat percentage with bioelectrical impedance analysis could become standard of care. They added, 'These data will drive better discussions in the doctor's office, as well as public health initiatives with the goal of improving the health of all.'
Atlantic
8 hours ago
- Atlantic
RFK Jr. Is Globalizing the Anti-Vaccine Agenda
This week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. used his address to a global vaccine summit to disparage global vaccination. The conference was organized by Gavi, the world's leading immunization program, and in a recorded speech, Kennedy accused the organization of collaborating with social-media companies to stifle dissenting views on immunization during the coronavirus pandemic and said it had 'ignored the science' in its work. He criticized Gavi for recommending COVID-19 shots to pregnant women, and went deep on a discredited study that purported to find safety issues with a tetanus vaccine commonly used in the developing world. 'In its zeal to promote universal vaccination,' Kennedy claimed, Gavi 'has neglected the key issue of vaccine safety.' Kennedy's remarks confirmed what The New York Times first reported in March: that the United States, Gavi's third-largest donor, would stop pledging money to the organization. (Congress, which has always had final say over Gavi funding, has not yet weighed in.) They are also the first indication that the U.S.'s rejection of global vaccine campaigns stems from the Trump administration's opposition not only to foreign aid, but to vaccination itself. For the first time, Kennedy has managed to use the anti-vaccine agenda to guide American foreign policy. Gavi, at its most basic level, is Costco for immunizations, wielding its massive purchasing power to buy vaccines in bulk for cheap. National governments and private philanthropies pledge funding to it every five years. The United Kingdom and the Gates Foundation are its largest donors; the United Nations distributes the shots. The poorest countries pay 20 cents per vaccine, and prices rise along with national income. Since the partnership was launched, in January 2000, 19 countries —including Ukraine, Congo, and Guyana—have gone from relying on Gavi to paying for vaccinations entirely on their own. Indonesia, which accepted donations from Gavi as recently as 2017, pledged $30 million to the organization this funding cycle. Gavi, by its own estimate, has saved about 19 million lives and vaccinated 1 billion children. At the conference this week, the director of the World Health Organization noted that since 2000, the number of children who die each year before they reach the age of 5 has fallen by more than half, largely due to the power of vaccines. By Gavi's estimates, the U.S. canceling its Biden-era pledge to provide $1.2 billion this donation cycle could lead to the deaths of more than 1 million children who otherwise would have lived. (The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment.) In his recorded remarks, Kennedy said America would not send the money until Gavi can 're-earn the public trust' by 'taking vaccine safety seriously.' Cutting off millions of children's only access to routine vaccines is 'the most emphatic globalization of the anti-vaxxer agenda,' Lawrence Gostin, the faculty director of Georgetown's O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, told me. Tom Frieden, the former director of the CDC, told me that after he heard Kennedy's remarks, 'I was literally sick to my stomach,' because 'unscientific, irresponsible statements like this will result in the deaths of children.' (The U.S. has run an international anti-vaccine campaign before: According to an investigation by Reuters, in 2020, the Pentagon unleashed bot accounts on multiple social-media platforms that impersonated Filipinos and discouraged uptake of China's Sinovac vaccine—the first COVID vaccine available in the Philippines—using a hashtag that read, in Tagalog, 'China is the virus.' The goal was not to combat vaccines, but to undermine China's influence.) Kennedy's prerecorded address held back his harshest critiques of Gavi. In his 2021 book, The Real Anthony Fauci, Kennedy paints 'Bill Gates's surrogate group Gavi' (the Gates Foundation co-founded Gavi) as nothing more than a profiteering 'cabal' and a facilitator of 'African Genocide.' To hear Kennedy tell it, 'virtually all of Gates's blockbuster African and Asian vaccines—polio, DTP, hepatitis B, malaria, meningitis, HPV, and Hib—cause far more injuries and deaths than they avert.' Decades' worth of safety and efficacy studies have proved him wrong. In his remarks to Gavi this week, Kennedy focused on the DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) shot, describing at length a 'landmark' 2017 study that found the vaccine increased all-cause mortality among girls in Guinea-Bissau. But as Frieden pointed out, this was in fact a relatively small observational study. In 2022, a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of more than 50,000 newborns found that the DTP vaccine significantly decreased infant mortality. Frieden compared the evidence: 'Hundreds of kids versus 50,000 kids. Poorly done; well done.' Kennedy made efforts to take his anti-vaccine advocacy global before he became America's health secretary. In 2021, he delivered a webinar on the importance of expanding an 'international movement' for Children's Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization he founded. In 2019, when Samoa was experiencing a major dip in measles immunization after an improperly prepared vaccine killed two children, Kennedy visited the prime minister and, on behalf of Children's Health Defense, reportedly offered to build an information system the country could use to track the health effects of vaccines and other medical interventions. When a deadly measles outbreak took hold later that year, Kennedy sent a letter to the prime minister suggesting that widespread vaccination might make unvaccinated Samoan children more likely to die of measles. (In an interview for a 2023 documentary, Kennedy said that 'I had nothing to do with people not vaccinating in Samoa' and that his conversations about vaccines with the prime minister had been 'limited.') Now, it seems, Kennedy has gained the power to realize his ambitions both domestically and abroad. Earlier this month, Kennedy dismissed all 17 members of the CDC's vaccine advisory committee, then replaced them with a group that includes several allies who have spread misinformation about the harms of vaccines. This week, as other countries pledged their support for Gavi, Kennedy's brand-new, handpicked panel convened for a discussion of the dangers of thimerosal, a vaccine ingredient that is a frequent target of anti-vaxxers despite having been found safe. The committee has formed a working group to review the 'cumulative effect' of childhood vaccination in the United States. As Kennedy said in his address to Gavi, 'Business as usual is over.'
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Member of RFK Jr's new vaccine panel withdraws over conflict of interest
A member of the health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr's newly overhauled federal vaccine advisory panel withdrew after a conflict of interest review, a spokesperson has told the Guardian. Dr Michael Ross, who was involved in multiple private healthcare companies, withdrew after review of his financial holdings. Kennedy unilaterally fired all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP) in June, arguing they had too many conflicts of interest. Related: Who are the eight new vaccine advisers appointed by Robert F Kennedy? Ross was among eight of Kennedy's ideological allies appointed to the committee, after the secretary argued the old members of the committee were subject to too many conflicts of interest. 'Yesterday, Dr Michael Ross decided to withdraw from serving on ACIP during the financial holdings review,' a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said. 'The sacrifice to serve on ACIP varies from member to member, and we appreciate Dr Ross's willingness to go through this rigorous process.' The spokesperson made the comments after Guardian inquiries about conflict of interest disclosures for new members of ACIP. Although the Trump administration and Kennedy developed a conflict of interest tracker specifically for ACIP members, Kennedy's appointees have not been added. The HHS spokesperson did not respond to Guardian inquiries about when and where new, written conflict of interest disclosures would be published. Instead, the spokesperson said the department has, 'comprehensively reviewed all newly appointed ACIP members for conflicts of interests in accordance with federal law, regulations and departmental polices', and that the members were provided 'ethics training prior to discharging their duties'. The new members of the committee were asked to disclose conflicts of interest before the meeting began on Wednesday. The committee chair Dr Martin Kulldorff and committee member Dr Robert Malone omitted widely reported work in vaccine litigation, and nurse Vicky Pebsworth said she was 'asked to read' a statement disclosed ownership of a healthcare stock but said it was below the government ethics office threshold for reporting. Ethics review of the new members was also the subject of Senate testimony on Wednesday. Under questioning by the Democratic senator Patty Murray of Washington, the Trump nominee to head the CDC, Dr Susan Monarez, said she was 'not familiar whether or not the members that are participating in the meeting this week have or have not gone through the ethics review necessary to allow them to participate in those meetings'. 'If it is known that they have not gone through the ethics process and they issue recommendations, would you accept them as valid?' asked Murray. 'If they have not gone through an ethics approval process, they shouldn't be participating in the meetings,' said Monarez.
