NEW ORLEANS (Reuters Health) - Forsaking healthy, home-cooked meals, more Americans than ever are gorging on calorie-rich, nutrient-poor snacks, sodas and sweets when the dinner bell rings, according to three studies tracking changes in the US diet over the past 25 years.

"Americans have increased their energy intake of French fries, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, pizza and Mexican food as part of their meals," conclude researchers led by Dr. Samara Joy Neilsen of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

Overall, they found that "total (food) energy intake has increased over the past 20 years, with shifts away from meals to snacks and from at-home to away-from-home."

Neilsen presented her findings here this week at the annual Experimental Biology 2002 conference.

Speaking to delegates, Neilsen said, "We know in the United States that obesity is on the rise, and we know that this is because of two things--we're increasing our energy intake across all the age groups as well as decreasing our physical activity."

Focusing on changes in diet, her team compared the results of national US government food consumption surveys conducted in 1977-78, 1989-91 and 1994-96.

Her team found that, in every age group, more and more Americans now consume a large proportion of their daily food intake via snacks rather than sit-down meals, favoring quick, easy--often non-nutritious--foods like potato chips, cookies, pizza and other high-calorie treats.

"The proportion of energy from restaurant/fast food has increased considerably" since the late 1970s, Neilsen added. Among 19- to 39-year-olds, away-from-home food consumption "just about doubled" between 1977 and 1996, she said, with 28% of young Americans saying they had eaten out on any given day in 1996, compared to just 14% two decades previously.

Another study, presented by Dr. Alanna Moshfegh of the US Department of Agriculture, broke the survey findings down even further, looking at changes in the popularity of our favorite--and not-so-favorite--foods. She found steep increases in consumption of pizza, chocolate and hamburgers, in children as well as adults.

Children are making a definite shift away from milk to sodas and sugary drinks, she noted. While 90% of 6- to 11-year-olds in the late 1970s said they had milk on a given day, just 78% could say so by the mid-1990s. At the same time, daily soda consumption rose in the same age group from 31% in the 1970s to 46% two decades later.

The war between milk and soda is indicative of a shift in the US diet, where nutrient-poor "junk foods" are gradually replacing healthier items such as low-fat milk, fruits and vegetables. "One is being consumed at the expense of the other," said the author of a third study, Dr. Ashima Kant of the City University of New York in New York City.

Looking closely at data on children's responses to the 1988-1994 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, she found that "energy-dense, nutrient-poor" foods now account for over 30% of American children's daily energy intake, "with sweeteners and desserts jointly accounting for nearly 25%."

Moreover, as children's self-reported intake of these types of foods rose, so did their risk of suffering from one or more vitamin or mineral deficiency. Kant concludes that, instead of junk foods simply being added to the average child's total diet, they are causing "a displacement of nutrient-dense foods."

Why, despite the proliferation of gyms, low-fat foods and public health campaigns are Americans ever more hungry for empty calories? According to Moshfegh, "the population is changing, there's a faster lifestyle, the mix of restaurants is different today, the availability of all types of food in all kinds of settings is much more prominent today."

That kind of easy access may be hard to resist. Moshfegh pointed to the results of a recent survey quizzing Americans on their criteria when making food choices. Although 80% of those surveyed said "taste" was the main reason they sought out a particular food, nearly two-thirds still claimed "nutrition" as a major factor, as well. But as Moshfegh told delegates, "I don't know if that always translates into behavior."

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