Children who are fed ultrafood become like old people. Only not externally, but internally – they experience the same changes in metabolism as their grandparents. This follows from a large study by Spanish scientists.
Their work was published in the famous scientific journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA Network Open. Scientists observed 1,426 children from 3 to 6 years old, 698 of them were boys (49.0%), the rest were girls.
Cardiometabolic ill health from early childhood
Ultrafood, ultrafoods, ultraprocessed products, and in common parlance simply “junk food”, the scourge of the modern world, generated by the global food industry. Its harm to adults has been proven in many studies. First of all, they contribute to the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. They are even classified into one group – cardiometabolic pathology. This emphasizes that they are all united by a common development mechanism: metabolic disorders (metabolism) lead to atherosclerosis, heart attacks, strokes and other diseases of the heart and blood vessels. And metabolic changes are an increase in blood sugar, cholesterol, lipids, and other associated changes in metabolism.
And the main thing that Spanish scientists discovered is approximately the same cardiometabolic changes in metabolism. Only they did not occur in older people, but in 3-6 year old children. What does it mean? The earlier such changes develop, the younger people will develop age-related diseases and the shorter their lives will be. That is, ultra-food in early childhood is a time bomb for life. “It is important to recognize the importance of early dietary habits and their future impact on cardiometabolic health,” says the presenter researcher Nancy Babio from the University of Rovira e Virgil in Tarragona.
Specifically, scientists found that children who consumed more “junk food” were fatter, had more fatty tissue in their bodies, and higher levels of glucose in their blood and lower concentrations of “good” cholesterol (HDL, which prevents the development of atherosclerosis). That is, 3-6 year olds were really a metabolic copy of old people.
Children give a lesson to adults
An interesting detail discovered by scientists. The mothers of these children, although younger, were more likely to be overweight or obese and had a lower level of education. They seemed to feed the children the same way they ate themselves. This emphasizes the most important point: parents play a huge role not only in upbringing in general, but also in shaping the child’s eating behavior. And as a rule, it then persists for life. That is, parents need to make efforts so that nutrition in childhood does not harm their children in future life.
Scientists have found that replacing just 100g of junk food with the same amount of normal food improves cardiometabolic parameters.
Many are sure that ultrafoods are soda and other sweet drinks, cookies, candies, and baked goods. That’s true, but it’s a tiny fraction of “junk food.” This includes not only sweets, but also 80-90% of the products on store shelves. This is the generic feature of ultrafood: it contains few useful components, a significant part of the product is occupied by chemical E-additives, sugar, salt, harmful types of fats and other unhealthy “fillers”. Therefore, it contains a lot of calories and little quality protein, healthy fats, fiber, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, which only primary products that are not deeply processed before sale are rich in. aif.ru wrote in detail about how to distinguish “junk food” from good products.
Source: aif.ru