Peanuts May Hold The Secret To Prevent Obesity, Study Finds

A recent study claimed that eating peanuts as a snack could help reduce the risk of obesity in children. The results of the 12-week intervention published in the Journal of Applied Research on Children found that Hispanic children in middle school who regularly ate snacks of peanuts or peanut butter showed a significant reduction in their Body Mass Index.

For the study, the researchers recruited 257 Latino adolescents who were at a greater risk of being overweight or obese, they guided them through a program of physical activity and nutrition education where they explained how to recognized healthy or unhealthy snacks while going back home, Medical Daily reports."Obesity is the most pressing health issue facing us today," said Craig Johnston, HHP assistant professor. "We'd like to think it's preventable, but from where I sit right now, there hasn't been a lot shown to be very effective on a large scale.We have a lot of kids skipping meals for a whole bunch of reasons," he said. "What we found is that kids get home from school around 4 p.m. There's less supervision by parents and less structure. Kids are sitting down at the TV and eating, eating, eating because they really didn't eat at school."