With national childhood obesity rates continuing as a major issue, a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the August 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association have found that kids are eating more fast food at home and eating more store-prepared food away from home than they did in 1996.  The huge study of almost 30,000 children aged 2 to 18 years between 1997 and 2006 found a major increase in number of calories (+255 kcal/day) and an 10.5% increase in the percentage of calories eaten away from home from 1977-2006.  “Eating location is an important factor in the diet of American children,” says Barry M. Popkin, PhD, Professor of Nutrition, UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health and lead author of the study.  — Joyce