A recent research brief published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior reveals that diet quality among adolescents in the United States is among the worst across all age groups.
This poor diet quality places young people at risk for various cardiometabolic diseases, including heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes, later in life.
The study assessed a group of adolescents aged 10-16 years using the Healthy Eating Index-2015 and medical testing.
The research utilized data from the Translational Investigation of Growth and Everyday Routine in Kids cohort, focusing on youth living in metropolitan areas of Louisiana, which are often characterized by medical underservice, high poverty levels, food insecurity, obesity, and related health issues.
The study participants provided baseline data, with follow-up measures taken two years later. These measures included physical activity, sleep patterns, and overall dietary guidelines adherence.
The research aimed to identify targets for future interventions in families, homes, and communities to improve diet quality and reduce health risks.
Of the initial 342 eligible and enrolled adolescents, the final study sample consisted of 192 participants with complete baseline and follow-up data.
During the study, participants wore accelerometers for at least seven days, completed two 24-hour dietary recalls, and underwent various measurements, including body composition, blood pressure, clinical chemistry, and anthropometrics.
The study’s findings highlighted that adolescents with poor adherence to the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, along with associated cardiometabolic risk factors, continued these unhealthy dietary patterns over the two years of the study.
This suggests that the adverse effects of a poor-quality diet had already established health risks that these teenagers are likely to face throughout their lives.
Dr. Amanda E. Staiano, the corresponding author from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University, emphasized the importance of identifying barriers to consuming a healthy diet and exploring effective strategies to overcome these barriers.
Promoting nutrition knowledge is necessary, but it should be coupled with efforts to encourage healthier food consumption behavior among adolescents to mitigate future health risks.
In conclusion, the study underscores the urgent need to address the poor diet quality among U.S. adolescents, as it has significant implications for their future health and well-being.
Efforts should focus on improving dietary habits and overall nutrition knowledge to reduce the risk of cardiometabolic diseases later in life.
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The research findings can be found in Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
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