Diet foods take children from fit to fat

Children, who consume diet-food and low calorie drinks, ironically tend to overeat and gain weight as they grow up. Obesity experts and researchers suggest that humans like most animals, learn to match calorie intake with the body’s requirement and habitually connect food tastes with calories ingested.

But when diet-versions of normally high calorie food are taken, the connection between taste and caloric-content gets distorted and results in overeating. So, in case you are relying on all that diet food to keep in shape you might just want to revise your diet chart.

"Based on what we've learned, it is better for children to eat healthy, well-balanced diets with sufficient calories for their daily activities rather than low-calorie snacks or meals," said Dr. David Pierce, a University of Alberta sociologist and lead author of the study, published in today's edition of the journal Obesity.

Juvenile rats, in the study were fed low-calorie foods initially. Later, when fed similar tasting calorie-dense foods, they overate, suggesting that the low-calorie foods disrupted the body's ability to recognize calories and regulate energy intake.

This was especially true among young rats genetically prone to obesity, indicating that children predisposed to obesity for genetic or other reasons will be worse off in the long run if they consume diet foods in their formative years.

The changes that occur in conditioning taste are fairly subtle and the effects are small, yet cumulate over time to produce adverse effects.

"Diet foods are probably not a good idea for growing youngsters,” said Pierce insisting that old-fashioned ways like balanced meals and regular exercise work best for keeping children fit and parents and professionals should both be aware of it.

Pierce added that further research is necessary with older animals using a variety of taste-related cues.

"The solution to the obesity epidemic is simple to understand but hard to implement," says Goutham Rao, childhood obesity expert. "Avoid sweetened beverages, avoid fast food, limit media time, fit physical activity into the everyday routine, and eat together as a family. If every family did these things there would be very few obese children."