Eating More Often to Cure Obesity

The obesity epidemic is slowly taking over the developed world.  People are eating more and more food.  They are driving cars instead of walking, and playing video games instead of sports.  These subtle lifestyle changes are becoming detrimental to their health as not only body image is at stake anymore.  Obesity is a precursor to many serious health problems such as diabetes, certain cancers, heart disease and cholesterol problems.  Changing ones lifestyle can be a difficult endeavor.  Becoming more healthy and active when overweight can seem a hefty task but this is necessary especially for parents.  17% of american children are overweight and this is most strongly associated with parental obesity and low physical activity, according to Andre Toschke and Helmut Küchenhoff (1932).

Toschke and Küchenhoff completed a study to link meal frequency to childhood obesity.  They measured the stature, sex and weight of 4370 German school children between the ages of 5 and 6, while their parents filled out extensive surveys on all the risk factors for obesity (1932).  The risk factors included number of meals served on plates per day, level of education of parents, obesity of parents, length of breastfeeding, hours of television watched, snacking throughout the day, eating alone or in front of the television, siblings and smoking during pregnancy (1934).  The main thing being surveyed was daily meal frequency and content.

While the other factors clearly play into the overall lifestyle and reason the child is obese, the number of meals eaten each day showed significant data.  Surprisingly the more meals eaten per day, the less obese the children were.  There were many more obese children eating three meals a day than there were eating 5 or more meals per day.  

Children eating only three meals a day are likely to snack throughout the day. Having a meal defined by a plate lets people finish a meal feeling satisfied whereas an open bag of chips will continue to be nibbled at until it is also finished.  This can result eating past the point of being full.  Eating only three times a day would leave the child extremely hungry at meal time meaning they are more likely to gouge on their food. According to Toschke and Küchenhoff “infrequent consumption of huge meals appears to favor fat deposition while frequent consumption of small servings adding up to the same total caloric intake does not” (1937). The body is able to process fats and other nutrients well in small portions but when it is faced with digesting huge meals it resorts to storing the food as fat on the body. 

Another example Toschke and Küchenhoff quoted was a food restriction trial on boxers.  In order to lose weight to fit into a weight class one half of the boxers consumed only two meals a day each 600 calories, while the other half consumed six meals a day at 200 calories each (1937).  Both groups showed a similar amount of weight loss but boxers eating two meals lost more muscle and less fat than those eating six meals.

Children suffering from obesity as children are very unlikely to undo this problem going into adulthood.  The changes need to be made while children are still making habits and these habits must be healthier.  While there are many ways our society can combat childhood obesity as easy one will be to instigate multiple small meals throughout the day.  This will help their metabolism digest their food intake instead of storing it as fat as well as giving the children consistent energy throughout the day so that they can be more active as well.  The children in this study alone were only 5-6 years old, there is no way they have to continue their unhealthiness into adulthood.  Parents need to help to monitor the food intake of their children as a way to combat obesity.

Works Cited

Toschke, Andrea M., and Helmut Küchenhoff. "Meal Frequency and Childhood Obesity." Obesity Research 13.11 (2005): 1932-938. 12 May, 2013. Web.