Overweight children given fast food in hospital by parents

A study has found that more than one-third of six to 12-year-olds admitted to the Mid-West Regional Hospital are overweight or obese.

The study, undertaken at the Children’s Ark ward, found that one in three has at least one fast-food meal brought in during their hospital stay. Researchers from the graduate entry school of medicine at UL and Dalhousie University Canada looked at the types of food eaten by child patients and found an “abundance” of fried food and a lack of water, brown bread, dairy products, and fruit and veg.

Professor Clodagh O’Gorman, consultant paediatrician, said: “There are approximately 145,000 paediatric admissions to hospital annually in Ireland and Limerick is probably representative of most of Ireland’s paediatric hospital wards.”

She also mentioned “the incongruent abundance of fried foods in the hospital setting” and said that this “underlines the need for the introduction of age-appropriate nutrition guidelines”.

Prof O’Gorman said approximately 50% of parents brought food into the hospital for their children.

“Of these, 60% brought fast food from takeaway restaurants. Children in hospital should be given treats, but these numbers suggest that as many as one in three children have at least one fast-food meal during their hospital stay,” she said.

One of the study’s authors Professor Colum Dunne, said awareness and education of lifestyle choices are important: “This challenge is reinforced by our finding that nearly 67% of parents of overweight or obese children believe that their child was of normal weight.”