Eating out or eating home

Eating out or eating home?   Are there restaurants make us fat?

Modern times in which we live have their facilities, but have negatives of a different nature.

One of the negative sides of the hectic lifestyle is the fact that more and more people eat out than doing it at home, which in turn can be a big reason for eating more calories than necessary / to what they would have eaten if you eat at home.

And here comes the natural question: Can eating out is one reason imperceptibly gain overweight / making bad food choices / not able to control their energy intake?

Are there restaurants us fat?

The study

In 2007 it was published for the first time to the general public a large study (EPIC – The European Prospective Investigaion into Cancer and Nutrition), whose purpose is to compare the average consumption of food out to this home. The study concerns 10 European countries.

And although it has its limitations because of its scale, namely the fact that examines large number of people makes it interesting for consideration.

For purposes of the study, people who are divided as “out-of-home eaters – OH” (eating out) are those who receive more than 25% of their total energy intake of eating places.

The number of participants is 34 270 individuals, of which 12,537 men and 21,733 women. Age is not less than 35 and not more than 74 years.

Method

EPIC is a large cohort study, the core of which is designed to examine the relationship between diet and energy intake out in the context of various chronic diseases – ie To determine whether people who eat out mainly tend to result in a sedentary lifestyle or are overweight.

Study participants had to provide 24-hour statement to consume food and drinks that happened through special software and then making a series of output data.

Early participants were 36,894, but later some of them dropped out due to non-compliance with the specified age group missing information in reports and more.

Consumption

Tya was monitored by specially built for this purpose software controlled by trained professionals. The software was designed to facilitate the memorization of the participants of exactly what they consumed. The information is collected over a 24 hour period and consuming food and drinks from the awakening of present day waking up the next day.

other data

The participants were divided into categories relating to education, activity in everyday life, smokers or not, and they were collected anthropometric data. As eating out were certain ones in which at least 25% of daily calorie intake is obtained when eating in restaurants. The downside is that the study monitored 24-hour period and can not compare the behavior of a particular person other days, but given the scale of the study, this is a difficult task. However, it is believed that people within 24 hours of consuming 25% of your calories by eating in public are those who are willing to do so in principle.

Results

Caloric intake when eating out was higher in northern European countries and lower in lying to the south and among the group of participants from the UK who make healthy food choices. The most frequently consumed out food groups were tea, coffee and sweets. To OH group (those receiving at least 25 percent of your calories by eating in a public place) dropped more men than women. Typical of this group are predominantly young people, people with sedentary lifestyles and increased energy intake, which applies to both men and women in the surveyed European countries.

Less OH-feeding were those with low solvency. Lower incidence of OH were observed during winter and weekends.

Disadvantages

The study has its limitations such as the inability to make the association between BMI and eating out; the inability to monitor the individual’s behavior and its food choices for the 24 hour period of time, and possible inaccuracies in the introduction of weight and height.

Potential link between increased consumption of food outside, and increased BMI may not be adequately detected in this type of study. It is not excluded to avoid options that overweight people selectively not entered any snacks outside the home.

Conclusion

In EPIC has studied model of nutrition in 10 European countries and found evidence that eating out (restaurants, cafes, catering, etc.) associated with a sedentary lifestyle and increased energy intake. Eating out is more typical among young people and includes several food groups, but mainly coffee, tea, water and sweets. We need new studies with longer duration that can link the relationship between obesity, physical activity and lifestyle eating out.