Gobbling Up Snacks: Cause or Potential Cure for Childhood Obesity?
Elizabeth Frazao,
Hayden Stewart,
Jeffrey Hyman, and
Andrea Carlson
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- Children today are consuming close to 200 more calories a day
from snacks than they did in the 1970s.
- Replacing a calorie-dense snack food with a fruit or vegetable
could reduce calorie intake and improve diet quality.
- Swapping common snack foods with a ½-cup serving of fruits or
vegetables can be done without compromising a household's food
budget.
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This article is drawn from . .
.
Are Healthy Foods Really More Expensive? It
Depends on How You Measure the Price, by Andrea Carlson
and Elizabeth Frazão, EIB-96, USDA, Economic Research Service, May
2012.
How Much Do Fruits and Vegetables Cost?
by Hayden Stewart, Jeffrey Hyman, Jean C. Buzby, Elizabeth Frazão,
and Andrea Carlson, EIB-71, USDA, Economic Research Service,
2011.
"Can Low-Income Americans
Afford To Satisfy MyPyramid Fruit and Vegetable Guidelines?" by
Hayden Stewart, Jeffrey Hyman, Elizabeth Frazão, Jean C. Buzby, and
Andrea Carlson, in Journal of Nutrition Education and
Behavior, Vol. 43, No. 3, May 2011, pp. 173-179.
"A Wide Variety of
Fruit and Vegetables Are Affordable for SNAP Recipients," by
Hayden Stewart and Andrea Carlson, in Amber Waves,
December 2011.
ERS Data on Fruit and Vegetable
Prices.
You may also
be interested in . . .
ERS Topics page on Food Choices
and Health.
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Consumption of snacks
among children has increased markedly over the last 35 years. In
the late 1970s, American children consumed an average of only one
snack a day. Today, they are consuming nearly three snacks per day.
As a result, daily calories from children's snacks have increased
by almost 200 calories over the period. Many of the snacks children
consume are high-calorie, low-nutrient foods such as desserts and
salty snacks. Trends in snacking, combined with larger portion
sizes and more sedentary lifestyles, may be contributing to the
incidence of overweight and obesity among children.
Despite its likely role
in childhood obesity, snacking may provide a mechanism for
addressing this obesity problem and improving diet quality.
Replacing one energy-dense snack each day with a fruit or vegetable
could reduce caloric intake and decrease the prevalence of
overweight and obesity. For example, a child replacing 1 ounce of
potato chips (150 calories) with a cup of grapes (104 calories) or
a medium-sized apple (95 calories) would consume 46-55 fewer snack
calories. If done on a daily basis, all else equal, this simple
behavior could result in about half a pound less of body weight at
the end of a month. And, replacing desserts or salty snack foods
with fruits and vegetables has the added bonus of reducing a
child's intake of added fats and sugars. But is this likely to
increase food costs? The reality is that replacing a snack with a
fruit or vegetable need not break a household's food budget.
Are Fruits and
Vegetables Really More Expensive?
Most Americans do not
consume the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables.
Researchers at Ohio State University found that in the early 2000s,
74 percent of children age 6-11 consumed less than the recommended
amount of fruit and 84 percent consumed less than the recommended
amount of vegetables. Tastes for sugary or salty foods,
convenience, and the perception of fruits and vegetables as being
expensive are among the reasons for this dietary disconnect.
The perception that
fruits and vegetables--particularly in fresh form--are expensive is
pervasive. In a 2012 survey for the Produce for Better Health
Foundation, nearly two-thirds of mothers with children age 10 and
younger cited cost as the most important factor when shopping for
fruits and vegetables. The perceived high cost is of particular
concern among lower income households.
A number of studies also
claim that "healthy" foods like fruits and vegetables cost more
than other foods. All such studies use price
per
calorie as the basis for comparison.
However, ERS researchers demonstrated that any conclusions about
what types of foods are considered expensive depend on the unit in
which prices are measured. Fruits and vegetables appear to be more
expensive than foods high in saturated fat, added sugars, and/or
sodium when prices are measured by calories but not necessarily
when prices are compared using other measures. For example, when
using price per average amount consumed, the researchers found that
fruits and vegetables are typically less expensive than less
healthy foods.
In another study, ERS
researchers estimated the cost of 59 fresh and processed fruits and
94 fresh and processed vegetables after adjusting for the removal
of inedible parts and cooking losses. They found that Americans on
a 2,000-calorie diet could purchase the quantity and variety of
both fruits and vegetables recommended in the 2010 Dietary
Guidelines for Americans for between $2.00 and $2.50 per
day.
For most Americans,
consuming the recommended quantity and variety of fruits and
vegetables will require increasing their consumption of and
spending on fruits and vegetables. However, the increase in
spending is more a function of the shortfall between the amounts
currently consumed and the amounts recommended by nutritionists
than of the high cost of fruits and vegetables. Furthermore,
increased spending on fruits and vegetables need not be associated
with increased food spending overall but could be offset by reduced
spending on other foods. Given that most Americans consume too many
calories, good candidates for reduced spending include
high-calorie, low-nutrient foods like the salty/sweet snacks
increasingly favored by children.
Price Per Portion
Captures Food Costs Better
What are some of the
foods that a child might eat as a snack? For this analysis, 20
items were selected from among the salty snacks, baked and sweet
goods, and frozen treats that children age 6-13 reported consuming
in the 2005-08 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys
(NHANES). In these surveys, participants report the types and
quantities of foods that they eat over 2 nonconsecutive days. Each
of the snack foods selected for analysis was commonly consumed,
requires little or no preparation, and is available in grocery
stores and other food retailers. Most also turned out to be high in
calories, added sugars, fat, and/or sodium and are considered less
healthy relative to fruits and vegetables.
Twenty fruits and
vegetables in both fresh and processed forms were identified as
potential replacements for snack foods. Some of these items, such
as fresh apples and bananas, are already commonly consumed by
children. Others are not. This may explain why, for 12 of the 20
fruits and vegetables, children who reported consuming these foods
ate, on average, less than ½ cup-equivalent. (A cup-equivalent is
generally the amount of edible food needed to fill a 1-cup
measuring cup; 2 cups for raw leafy greens, ½ cup for dried fruit.)
One-half of a cup-equivalent is similar to what the
2010 Dietary Guidelines for
Americans define as a "serving" and is also
similar to the size of many fruit cups sold in supermarkets for
snacks and lunch boxes.
It was particularly
difficult to find vegetable options, as children tend to consume
most vegetables infrequently and in small amounts, so completing
the list of fruit and vegetable snacks required creative thinking.
For example, sweet potatoes--although not commonly consumed by
children--are easy to microwave and might appeal to children
because of their sweet taste.
Retail prices for the 40
snacks vary widely. Household scanner data reveal that, in 2010,
Americans paid $0.24 per pound for whole watermelon, $1.11 per
pound for canned peaches, and $3.86 per pound for potato chips (see
box, "Estimating the Costs of Buying and Eating
Foods"). Retail price per pound, however, is a misleading
measure for assessing the impact on a household's food budget of
replacing a snack food with a fruit or vegetable. First, consumers
purchase and eat different amounts of various food items. Second,
foods vary in their amounts of inedible parts, and some foods may
gain or lose weight upon cooking. A 16-ounce bag of potato chips,
for example, might provide 16 snack portions, whereas a pound of
watermelon might provide 3 to 4 snack portions after removing the
inedible rind. Therefore, price per portion is a better indicator
of food costs.
In this analysis, a portion equals the average amount consumed per
eating occasion by children age 6-13 in the 2005-08 NHANES. For the
12 fruits and vegetables currently consumed by children in small
quantities, the portion size was set at one-half of a
cup-equivalent, assuming children would need to replace current
snacks with a "reasonable" amount of a fruit or vegetable. In
converting each food's retail price to a price per portion,
adjustments were made for refuse (i.e., the watermelon rind or the
peel of a banana) and for weight lost or gained when cooking (e.g.,
when microwaving a sweet potato).
Food Budgets Not
Affected by Swapping Snacks
Contrary to popular
perception, fruits and vegetables are comparable in price per
portion to other snack foods, and both groups offer inexpensive as
well as more expensive options. Nine of the 20 fruits and
vegetables and 8 of the 20 other snack foods cost 25 cents per
portion or less; an additional 8 fruits and vegetables and 10 other
snack foods cost between 26 and 50 cents per portion. On average,
the 20 fruits and vegetables cost 31 cents per portion, while the
20 other snack foods cost 33 cents per portion. Graham crackers
were the least expensive of the 40 snacks examined (14 cents per
portion), and muffins and frozen pizza were the two most expensive
(83 and 63 cents per portion).
Although some
substitutions can increase food costs, others can reduce or have no
impact on the food budget. Most substitutions, however, reduce
snack calories. For example, replacing:
-
a 1-ounce chocolate chip cookie
with ¼ cup of dried raisins saves 14 calories
and costs an additional 3 cents;
-
4.1 ounces of ready-to-eat
pudding with ½ cup of baby carrots saves
130 calories and 19 cents;
-
1.1 ounces of potato chips with
½ cup of strawberries saves 142 calories and
costs an additional 14 cents.
Making these 3
substitutions could reduce caloric intake by 286 calories with
little change in cost (2 cents savings), as higher costs for some
substitutions are offset by lower costs for others.
Another 397 substitutions
are possible using each of the 20 fruits and vegetables to replace
each of the 20 snack foods, with different calorie and cost
tradeoffs. Making all 400 substitutions would result in an overall
reduction of $7.00 in food costs--a small amount when spread over
the 13 or so months needed to make all 400 substitutions at a rate
of 1 substitution a day. The net impact on calories, however, is
considerable, averaging 126 fewer calories per substitution. A
month of swapping snacks once a day would save 3,780 calories,
which, all else equal, would translate into approximately 1 less
pound of body weight.
Substituting a fruit or
vegetable for another type of snack food could increase fruit and
vegetable consumption and help reduce childhood obesity. The
Produce for Better Health Foundation reports that most mothers are
aware that their families do not consume enough fruits and
vegetables and are interested in new ways to incorporate these
foods into their children's diets.
The perception that
fruits and vegetables are expensive may be a barrier to replacing
foods and vegetables for other snacks. But the reality is that many
fruits and vegetables are no more expensive per portion than many
popular snack foods. For any given household, the actual impact on
both calories and food costs will depend on the snack foods
consumed by children, the fruits and vegetables used as
replacements, the amounts consumed, and prices paid for each food.
The results of this analysis, however, show that replacing less
healthy snack foods with fruits and vegetables does not have to
compromise a household's food budget.
Estimating the Costs of Buying and Eating
Foods
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Retail food prices are
easily checked by most any consumer walking through the aisles of a
store. Less observable is the cost of actually consuming a given
food. ERS researchers studying food costs draw on various data
sources to estimate average purchase prices as well as the cost of
consuming specific foods.
A key source of data on
retail food prices is scanner data. Nielsen Homescan data are one
such source. Households participating in the Homescan consumer
panel use a scanner at home to record items purchased, quantities
bought, amount of money paid, and date of purchase for all retail
food purchases. The 2010 data provide limited information about
random-weight foods such as loose apples and store-baked muffins.
Thus, purchase information is only available for foods such as
prepackaged apples and muffins that are sold with a Universal
Product Code (UPC), a type of bar code. The 2010 Homescan data used
for this analysis is based on information from 60,648
households.
National average retail
prices were calculated for this analysis by summing expenditures
for each snack across all brands, flavors, and package sizes of the
snack, across all stores, and over an entire year, and dividing by
quantities purchased. The price of "muffins," for example, includes
small, medium, and large blueberry, cranberry, bran, and other
sizes and flavors of muffins sold with a UPC. This approach gives a
greater weight to the prices of more frequently purchased flavors
and sizes.
Some retail food products
like potato chips and muffins can be eaten "as is," while others
require the consumer to remove inedible parts or cook the food
prior to consumption. A food's edible and retail weights are
different in these cases. For example, in 2005-08, children
consumed an average 5.2 edible ounces of apples. However, since 10
percent of a fresh apple is inedible, households must buy 5.8
ounces of apples at retail in order to consume 5.2 ounces.
Multiplying 5.8 ounces by the average retail cost for apples ($0.99
per pound in 2010) reveals the estimated cost of eating an average
portion of apples to be $0.36.
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