According to a recently published study in Nutrition Journal, frequency of candy consumption is not linked to obesity. If that’s not a shocker, they also suggest it isn’t linked to other health risks such as heart disease. In related news, there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that there is any correlation between interacting with water and getting wet. Feel free to eat as many Snickers in your bathtub as you deem fit, safe in the knowledge that you are the pinnacle of health and dryness.
Using objective markers such as BMI, waist circumference, and skinfold thickness — we’ll give you a second to get over how creepy the phrase “skinfold thickness” sounds — the study found that those who ate candy at least every other day were no more likely to be overweight or to have greater risk of cardiovascular disease than those who ate candy once a week or less. Similarly, there could be no association found between candy consumption and blood pressure, insulin resistance, triglycerides, and cholesterol, all of which are considered markers of cardiovascular disease.
Before you clear out the candy aisle of your local drug store in a gleeful frenzy, however, you should probably know that the study was sponsored by the National Confectioners Association. As the name implies, the NCA is the largest snack-related lobbyist group in the U.S., so they certainly don’t have any reason to want candy to be disassociated from the growing obesity problem in America or anything.
The study analyzed data from the 2003-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of more than 5,000 adults over the age of 19, all of whom lived in the United States because of course they did. Almost all of those adults (96%, to be exact) fessed up to eating candy at least once in their lives, so the NCA probably has nothing to worry about as far as sales of their favorite products are concerned.
Tellingly, the published report had nothing to say about how much the sheer amount of candy you eat at any particular time affects your health, only the frequency with which you eat any candy at all. So if you’re one of those people who can down a whole bag of miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in one go, then you’re probably out of luck. Not that I know anyone who may have done that recently. No, sir. Nothing to see here.
(via EurekAlert, image via Jeff Adair)
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