A dangerous myth about who eats fast food is completely false 关于都有谁吃了美国快餐的一个危险误区 作者：Roberto A. Ferdman @ 2015-9-18

译者：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy）

校对：龟海海

来源：The Washington Post， http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/09/18/rich-parents-might-look-down-on-fast-food-but-its-actually-their-kids-who-eat-it-the-most/ There's a popular narrative about poor families and fast food: They eat more of it than anybody else. It’s dangled as evidence for the high rate of obesity among poorer Americans --  and talked about even by some of the country’s foremost voices on food. "[J]unk food is cheaper when measured by the calorie, and that this makes fast food essential for the poor because they need cheap calories," Mark Bittman for The New York Times in 2011.

有个流行的说法讲的是贫困家庭和快餐的关系：他们吃的快餐比谁都多。这种说法被人视为贫困美国人高肥胖率的根据——甚至这个国家食品界的一些权威人物也会这么讲。Mark Bittman 2011年在《纽约时报》上写道：“以卡路里来衡量，垃圾食品更便宜，这就使得快餐成为穷人必备，因为他们需要便宜的卡路里。”

But there’s a problem with saying that poor people like fast food better than others. It’s not true.

但是，贫困人口比其他人更喜欢快餐这种说法是错误的。

New data, released by the Centers for Disease Control , show that America's love for fast food is surprisingly income blind. Well-off kids, poor kids, and all those in between tend to get about the same percentage of their calories from fast food, according to a survey of more than 5,000 people. More precisely, though, it's the poorest kids that tend to get the smallest share of their daily energy intake from Big Macs, Whoppers, Chicken McNuggets, and french fries.

疾病控制中心发布的新数据显示，美国人对快餐的狂热出人意料地和收入并无关系。根据一项针对5000多人的调查，富孩子、穷孩子以及所有处于两者之间的孩子，从快餐中获取的卡路里占比趋于相同。不过，更准确而言，在每日的能量摄入中，正是在最穷的孩子身上，来自巨无霸、皇堡、麦乐鸡和炸薯条的份额最小。 As shown in the chart above, children born to families living just above the poverty line and below get roughly 11.5 percent of their calories from fast food. For everyone else, the portion is closer to 13 percent.

上表显示，对于来自刚过贫困线及贫困线以下家庭的孩子，约有11.5%的卡路里来自快餐。对于所有其他人，这个比例接近13%。

Surprisingly, the better-off children—those between the ages of 2 and 11 years—lead the pack. The average percentage of calories coming from fast food for kids with working and middle class parents is 9.1 percent. But poor kids only get 8 percent of their calories food.

令人惊讶的是，在儿童——即2至11岁的孩子——中，富孩子处于领先。父母为工人阶级和中产阶级的孩子，源自快餐的卡路里比例平均为9.1%。贫困线以下的孩子该比例则仅有8%。

For teenagers, it's those born to the poorest families, once again, who rely on fast food the least.

青少年也一样，生于最贫困家庭的，对快餐依赖最少。

The data offer sobering insight into America's seemingly impenetrable love for fast food. More than a third of all children and adolescents living in the country still eat some form of fast food on any given day, a number which hasn't budged in decades, according to the CDC.

美国人对快餐的狂热令人费解，上述数据为此提供的见解发人深省。疾控中心数据表明，任选一天，我国都仍有超过三分之一的儿童和青少年会食用某种快餐，这个数字几十年没有变过。

And many children are getting alarmingly high proportions of their diet from chicken nuggets and french fries. About a quarter of all kids in the United States get 25 percent of their calories from fast food. And 12 percent of kids get more than 40 percent of their calories from fast food.

并且，许多孩子的食谱中炸鸡块和炸薯条的份额之高令人担忧。全美所有孩子中约有四分之一从快餐中获取的卡路里达到25%。有12%的孩子从快餐中获取的卡路里超过40%。

The data also help to discredit the notion that fast food — or, at the very least, unhealthy food — only preys on the poor . The concept of food deserts, lower income areas where healthy food is scarce or expensive or both, has given rise to the idea that poorer populations rely on fast food out of necessity and convenience.

数据同样否定了一个观念：快餐——或至少是不健康食物——只损及穷人。食物沙漠——健康食品或稀有或昂贵或两者兼有的低收入地区——这一概念导致了一种看法：贫困人口出于必然性与便利性的缘故，更为依赖快餐。

While there's evidence that income does appear to affect the relative nutritional value of foods people eat—food stamp participants, for instance, tend to procure the same amount of calories as everyone else but from substantially less healthy foods —there doesn't seem to be the same proof that that gap is attributable to fast food.

当然，有证据表明，收入似乎确实会影响人们所吃食物的相对营养价值。比如，使用食品券的人所获取的卡路里数量与其他人趋于相同，但其中大量来自相对不那么健康的食品。但要说在快餐问题上也存在这样的差距，则没有类似的证据。

Child obesity, though it has fallen off in recent years, is still historically high in the United States. American kids are far more likely to be overweight than those living in most other countries. The epidemic has affected poorer children disproportionately , but it would be foolish to overlook the fact that roughly 12 percent of high income children are obese. The deterioration of the American diet hasn't helped. But nor has kids's sustained love for fast food in this country.

尽管近些年来，儿童肥胖有所下降，但它仍处于美国历史上的高位。与绝大多数其它国家的孩子相比，美国孩子出现体重超标的可能性要高得多。这种流行病对较贫穷的孩子影响更大，但如果我们看不到约12%的高收入家庭孩子患有肥胖症这一事实，那也是不妥的。美国食谱的恶化让问题雪上加霜。同样，我国孩子对快餐的一贯热爱也同样没起到什么好作用。

Fast food remains a problem for the whole of American youth. Children, independent of socioeconomic status, are bombarded with advertisements for fast food. The industry spends billions of dollars each year on marketing, much of which is used to target children and teenagers. A 2012 study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity found that kids were seeing between three to five fast food ads on television every day.

对所有美国年轻人而言，快餐仍是个难题。不分社会经济地位，孩子们都处于快餐广告的狂轰滥炸之中。这个行业每年花费几十亿进行市场推广，其中许多就是针对儿童和青少年。食品政策与肥胖拉德中心2012年一项研究发现，孩子们每天在电视上看到的快餐广告有3-5种。

And those commercials appear to be working. On all children.

这些广告似乎在所有的孩子们身上起作用。

Rich parents might roll their eyes at Big Macs and french fries, but it's their kids who like them most.

富裕的父母可能会对着巨无霸和炸薯条翻白眼，但他们的孩子对这些爱不释手。

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