All That Craptastic Fast Food Your Kid Is Eating Is Giving Them Asthma

Time to feel guilty about those twice a week happy meals, the weekend french fries, and routine nuggets. Those regular trips to grab grease may have a little something to do with the rising levels of allergies — in over 50 countries. Can we do a global parenting guilt parade?

The BBC reports that after reviewing the data of over half a million children across the world, researchers feel pretty confident in blaming fast food for “severe asthma, eczema and itchy, watery eyes.”

No need to have a breakdown, though, occasional fast food families. This particular study tackled kids who consumed three or more weekly servings of fast food, which determined a 39 percent increased risk of severe asthma for teens and 27 percent increased risk for 6- and 7-year-olds.

But where the greasiness of fast food taketh away, the goodness of fruit give back — or rather protect the immunity of kids. The science goes a little something like this:

Fast food often contains high levels of saturated- and trans-fatty acids, which are known to affect immunity, while fruit is rich in antioxidants and other beneficial compounds, say the researchers…Eating three or more portions of fruit a week cut the risk of severe asthma, eczema and rhinoconjunctivitis by between 11% and 14%.

Malayka Rahman of Asthma UK, implies that the relationship between diet and asthma isn’t anything we didn’t already know:

“Evidence suggests that the vitamins and antioxidants found in fresh fruit and vegetables have a beneficial effect on asthma therefore Asthma UK advises people with asthma to eat a healthy, balanced diet including five portions of fruit or vegetables every day, fish more than twice a week, and pulses more than once a week.”

Suddenly those apples at McDonald’s seem like a bit of fair cross canceling.

(photo: Andrey Armyagov / Shutterstock)