Parents consume an increased amount of fat than do their childless counterparts, a University of Iowa study concluded. Parents eat a total of five grams more of fat and one point seven additional grams of saturated fat daily. That number is the same as is in a pepperoni pizza, Reuters Health notes.

The study, conducted by Dr. Helena Laroche, along with a group of researchers, was published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine on January 4, 2007.

“Adults living with children younger than 17 also ate more salty snacks, cheese, beef, ice cream, cakes and cookies, pizza, and processed meats like bacon,” the news service reported. The news service also said that adults might be storing bad foods in the house because it’s what their kids like. The study concludes that tight schedules and a lack of time may also be some causes of parents’ poor food decisions. Kids’ advertising, notorious for promoting high-fat and high-sugar foods, was also seen as a possible cause.

“These findings suggest that food advertising aimed at children may influence not only the child’s diet but also indirectly affect parents’ diets,” Laroche and her team said in their study.

Laroche said the answer to this problem is that “we need to approach nutrition as good for the whole family,” she said to Reuters Health. “Everybody should be eating the same nutritious food.”

Laroche said that adults may want to wean kids off high-fat milk by having them begin drinking low-fat milk after the age of two. This is also the general suggestion of the Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association, according to Reuters.

For their study, LaRoche and her group looked at data courtesy of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Study, a sampling of 6,660 men and women ranging in age from 17 to 65

until next time!