High GI Foods Will Make You and Your Children Fat

Recently, Italien scientists (Barba. 2010) published findings from an investigation on the effects of glycemic index (GI) on body fat distribution in children. Although the glycemic index (GI) scare has ebbed off lately, the results of that study show that you should still be monitoring your sources of carbohydrate carefully:

GI was directly associated with age, waist and BMI z-scores, energy, fibre and carbohydrate intake (r: from 0.080 to 0.238, P < 0.001), and negatively with fat intake (r: −0.060, P < 0.0001). [...] GI was associated with BMI and waist z-scores independently of age, sex, parental overweight/obesity, parental education, and energy intake, protein, fat, carbohydrate, fibre and GL residuals.

Table 1. Characteristics of the population: comparison across
glycaemic index quartiles. (Barba. 2010)

In particular, GI was the sole nutritional factor among those under investigation, significantly associated with waist circumference.
Controlling for covariates, the risk of overweight/obesity or of central fat distribution was almost two-folds higher in the upper quartile in comparison to the lowest quartile of dietary GI [cf. Table 1].

So you better not buy those carb-loaden low-fat foods if you want to preserve a healthy body composition and a presentable mid-section. If you are a parent, pay special attention to all those fat-free foods specifically marketed for children - most are 100% plain sugar (or what is in spite of its low GI even worse: fructose)!