The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been finding the solution to combat childhood obesity. Even if there are reports that it is slowly declining, there are still approximately 12.7 million children and adolescents between ages 2 and 19 who's suffering from this condition. However, a new study revealed that eating peanut butter may just do the trick.
Researchers from University of Houston Department of Health and Human Performance (HHP), Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Woman's University have recently come up with a study suggesting that including snacks with peanuts in your diet can greatly help in reducing the body mass index (BMI) of obese or overweight people.
According to dnaindia.com, Craig Johnston, an assistant professor from the HHP explained that obesity is the most critical health issue people are struggling with these days. "We'd like to think it's preventable, but from where I sit right now, there hasn't been a lot shown to be very effective on a large scale," he added.
Researchers enrolled 257 Latino students who had higher risk of being overweight or obese in a 12-week intensive nutrition intervention program.Medicaldaily.com reported that this particular program includes nutrition education, physical activities, and those who are enrolled get to choose between healthy or unhealthy snacks when they get on the bus home. It was revealed that almost 50% of the students choose to have peanuts or peanut butter 3 or 4 times a week while others got the snack less than once a week.
After the program, students were asked to keep their respective snack habit for another 12 weeks. After six months, researchers found that those who chose peanuts or peanut butter for their snacks had a dramatic decrease in body mass index (BMI) compared to those who snacked on chips and sweetened beverages. The results led researchers to conclude that peanuts are healthier snack options, especially to those who always munch on unhealthy snacks.
"Schools are doing a great job of teaching kids, getting them workforce ready, and a whole bunch of other things," said Craig Johnston. "We've just got to make sure that our kids are going to live long, happy lives with that kind of education," he added.
