TV/fast-food combo: worse than we though - Weight Control Update

New research supports what sounds obvious: Watching a lot of television and eating a lot of fast food make even young people fat. Making matters worse, people who engage in these behaviors probably have other unhealthy lifestyle habits too, such as smoking and being sedentary. Those were the conclusions of a Children's Hospital Boston study of more than 3,700 people ages 18-30. The key findings:

* People who ate fast food two or more times a week had a 50 percent higher risk of obesity than those who did so once a week or less. Their risk for blood-glucose-control problems, which are closely linked to diabetes, was double.

* People who ate fast food more than twice a week and watched at least 2 1/2 hours of TV daily had triple the risk of both obesity and glucose-control problems compared to those who ate out once a week or less and watched no more than 1 1/2 hours of TV.

* The kind of fast food eaten didn't seem to matter much; fries, hamburgers, breakfast sandwiches and chicken nuggets all were linked to obesity.

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