Study: Adults get 11% of calories from fast food

Associated Press

ATLANTA

On an average day, U.S. adults get roughly 11 percent of their calories from fast food, a government study shows.

That’s down slightly from the 13 percent reported the last time the government tried to pin down how much of the American diet is coming from fast food. Eating fast food too frequently has been seen as a driver of America’s obesity problem.

For the research, about 11,000 adults were asked extensive questions about what they ate and drank over the previous 24 hours to come up with the results.

Among the findings:

Young adults eat more fast food than their elders; 15 percent of calories for age 20 to 39 and dropping to 6 percent for those 60 and older.

Blacks get more of their calories from fast food, 15 percent compared with 11 percent for whites and Hispanics.

Young black adults got a whopping 21 percent from the likes of Wendy’s, Taco Bell and KFC.

The figures are averages. Included in the calculations are some people who almost never eat fast food, as well as others who eat a lot of it.

The survey covers the years 2007 through 2010 and was released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The authors couldn’t explain why the proportion of calories from fast food dropped from the 13 percent found in a survey for 2003 through 2006.