It's official: Eating at fast food joints does send caloric intake soaring

A new study has demonstrated that adults who eat at both fast food and full-service restaurants have a increased chance of calories, sugar, saturated fat, and sodium intake.

Binh T. Nguyen of the American Cancer Society and Lisa M. Powell of the University of Illinois at Chicago said that the United States was one of the most obese nations in the world, with more than one in three adult men and women in defined as obese.

Nguyen further said that just as obesity rates rise, there had been a marked increase in total energy consumption consumed away from home, with about one in four calories coming from fast food or full service restaurants in 2007.

The researchers said that the larger adverse effect they measured on energy intake for some lower socio-economic and minority populations had policy implications.

The study found Individual characteristics moderated the impact of restaurant food consumption. Net energy intake was larger for black adults compared with their white and Hispanic counterparts and greater for middle-income v. high-income adults.

The study is published in Public Health Nutrition.