Home-Cooked Meals Lower Obesity

Science consistently finds that eating out is linked with higher calorie, sodium, and saturated fat intakes and obesity. That’s because restaurant meals are often over-sized and loaded down with salt, saturated fat, and calories. When you cook at home, you are more likely to include servings of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and enjoy a smaller portion. So, a new study pretty much backed up what we already know. Adults who eat mostly home-cooked foods and who don’t watch TV during family meals are less likely than others to be obese, research shows. Researchers analyzed data from nearly 13,000 participants of the 2012 Ohio Medicaid Assessment Survey who had eaten at least one family meal in the last week. Adults who cooked all of their meals at home were 26 percent less likely to be obese, compared to those who ate some or no home-cooked meals. Those who never watched TV while eating were 37 percent less likely to be obese than people who always watched TV during meals at home.

(Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, February 24, 2017) Read the full study here.

Main image:   Easy Vegetable Tofu Bibimbap Skillet, Sharon Palmer, RDN