Eating out is a popular activity worldwide, but its link to health outcomes has been little researched. Researchers looked at the link between outdoor eating and risk of death and concluded that outdoor eating is often significantly associated with an increased risk for full-term death, which deserves further study.
Their results are reflected in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, published by Elsevier.
Eating out is a popular activity. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently estimated that Americans’ daily energy from food away from home increased from 17 percent in 1977-1978 to 34 percent in 2011-2012. At the same time, the number of restaurants has steadily increased, and restaurant business sales are expected to increase significantly.
While some restaurants provide high-quality food, the quality of a diet for food away from home, especially from fast food chains, is usually lower compared to home-cooked food. Evidence has shown that foods away from home tend to be higher in energy, fat, and sodium concentrations, but lower in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and protective nutrients such as dietary fiber and antioxidants.
Emerging evidence, although still limited, indicates that eating out is often associated with an increased risk for breast diseases, such as obesity and diabetes and biomarkers from other chronic diseases. However, little is known about the link between eating food away from home and the risk of death. “
Wei Bao, MD, PhD, Principal Investigator and Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
Analysts analyzed data from responses to questionnaires administered at face-to-face home interviews from 35,084 adults aged 20 years and over who participated in the 1999-2014 Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Respondents described their dietary habits including frequency of eating food prepared away from home.
“We linked these records to death records through December 31, 2015, looking specifically at full-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, and cancer mortality,” said first author Yang Du, MD, PhD candidate, Department Epidemiology, College of Public Health, note.University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
During 291,475 follow-up years, 2,781 deaths occurred, including 511 deaths from cardiovascular disease and 638 deaths from cancer.
After adjustment for age, sex, race / ethnicity, socioeconomic status, dietary and lifestyle factors, and body mass index, the mortality risk ratio among participants who ate home-prepared food often (two or more meals a day) compared with those who rarely ate food prepared away from home (less than one meal a week) at 1.49 (95% CI 1.05 to 2.13) for all-cause mortality, 1.18 (95% CI 0.55 to 2.55) for cardiovascular death, and 1.67 (95% CI 0.87 to 3.21) for cancer mortality.
“Our findings from this large national representative sample of US adults show that regular consumption of foods prepared away from home is associated with an increased risk of increased mortality. for every reason, “said Dr Du.
“This is one of the first studies to quantify the link between outdoor eating and mortality,” Dr. Bao concluded. “Our findings, according to previous studies, support that eating out is often associated with adverse health effects and could inform future dietary guidelines to recommending a reduction in the consumption of home-prepared food. “
“The take home message is that frequent consumption of food prepared from home may not be a healthy habit. Instead, people should be encouraged to consider preparing more foods at home,” the researchers concluded.
Future studies are still needed to take a closer look at the link of outdoor eating with deaths from cardiovascular disease, cancer, depression and other chronic diseases.
“It is important to note that the study design for this research examines links between the frequency of eating prepared food away from home and mortality. While they encourage clients to consider healthy eating prepared at home, registered dietitians may focus on how choices from restaurant foods will be healthy.
Tailoring strategies for each client by reviewing menus from restaurants can often help them make healthy food choices, ”added co-researcher Linda G. Snetselaar, PhD, RDN, LD, FAND, professor and chair, Preventive Nutrition Education, Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA, and Managing Editor of the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.