NYC's Health Department encourages consumers to choose beverages with less sugar.
Image: New York City Health Department
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New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign to limit sugary drinks is losing juice, but an idea the city has used to convey caloric information about these beverages might actually have legs. Public awareness posters used by the campaign showed the number of miles a person would have to walk to burn off the calories in a 20-ounce soda, and new research suggests that physical activity–based conversions such as these can actually persuade people to make healthier choices.
FOOTLOOSE: Researchers tested four labeling scenarios.
Image: Courtesy of Dowray et. al.
Choosing what to eat or drink based on calorie numbers alone is challenging for some restaurant-goers, according to Anthony Viera at the University of North Carolina (U.N.C.) at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. “It requires a computation that many people might not find easy to make at the point of decision,” he says. So Viera and his colleagues conducted an online survey of 802 individuals randomly presented with one of four hypothetical menus. One of the menus provided only calorie counts, another supplemented this with information about the number of minutes one would need to walk to burn those calories whereas the third menu showed calorie numbers plus the distance necessary to walk them off. The fourth menu had no nutritional data whatsoever. All of the physical activity labeling for walking was based on the energy expenditure of a 160-pound adult walking at a rate of 30 minutes per mile—so a “regular burger” was, for example, listed as containing 250 calories, the equivalent amount burned in 2.6 miles, or 78 minutes of walking.
People who viewed the menu without nutritional information ordered a meal totaling 1,020 calories, on average, significantly more than the average 826 calories ordered by those who viewed menus that included information about walking-distance. Study participants ordered meals adding up to averages of 927 calories and 916 calories from menus with only calorie information or calorie information plus minutes walking, respectively, although the differences between these two totals were not statistically significant. The findings appear in the March issue of the journal Appetite. “The next stage is to see how this might work in a real-world setting,” says Sunaina Dowray, a medical student at the U.N.C. School of Medicine and lead author of the study. She says that the team might try to work with the school’s cafeteria about the possibility of testing the concept their labels there.
Although a difference of 200 or even 100 calories might not seem large, a 2011 study from researchers that included scientists at the National Institutes of Health calculated that eating just 10 fewer calories a day would make a person shed a pound of weight over three years.
Running with the idea
The notion of physical activity–based calorie labeling has stirred interest. “This is a huge window of opportunity for the public health community to provide consumers useful information about calories,” says Sara Bleich of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who was not involved in the new study. “Information-based interventions that require less mental processing are typically more successful than information-based interventions requiring greater computation effort,” she adds. Bleich co-authored a 2012 study published in the American Journal of Public Health that looked at sugary drink sales at four corner stores in a low-income Baltimore neighborhood in which the scientists placed brightly-colored signs on the beverage cases asking, “Did you know that working off a bottle of soda or fruit juice takes about 50 minutes of running?” The signs that included this physical activity estimate reduced the odds of adolescents purchasing sugar-sweetened beverages whereas signs that included only the calorie content produced no statistically significant decline in such odds.
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16 Comments
Add CommentOh geojellyroll- with your logic, if people over 18 acted like adults, maybe we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic. Yet, we are the fattest nation on the planet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"We know not to smoke and put crap in our bodies."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExcept that you don't, especially when there is a well-oiled and enormously successful marketing engine specifically designed to subdue your restraint and overwhelm your senses.
Now it's perfectly ok for you to give in to this propaganda and we shouldn't care what you choose to do with your bodies, but the problem is that it's us who have to bear the financial burdens of obesity-related health costs and lost productivity if you end up in the hospital with heart disease and diabetes. So as much as we don't want to, we are forced to end up caring about what you do to your health.
It's not just that...it's the fact that those same "adults" who make consistently poor choices become a huge drain on our healthcare system and our taxpayer dollars. Why should I subsidize YOUR bad habits?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWay to oversimplify pretty much every issue ever.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I am going to be held liable for adults who make bad decisions when it comes to nutrition and health, then you better believe I am going to have a strong opinion on why they should be held accountable for eating clean. As a country we make it very easy to be obese, we need to start from the food pyramid down and start making this poison not available to be consumed!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere's some evidence that living longer (Not smoking, not being obese) actually costs more than the costs of people dying (expensively) at a much younger age. So even though I agree that people should eat clean etc, the view that I should be able to control someone elses life because a tiny tiny percentage of my tax dollars might go towards their medical care is odd to me. Not only that it sort of goes against the whole idea of a free society. (imo obviously)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI totally agree that fat people are becoming a drain on society, but I think a better way to address the issue is to change our agricultural subsidies away from corn, soybeans, and animal feed, and replace with subsidies on healthy fruits and veggies. Also, I think that there should be a fat tax on unhealthy processed foods and drinks that are proven to cause obesity. People should have the freedom to buy and consume whatever they want, but if it is bad for them then there needs to be a tax on it, and the revenue from that tax can be put towards the medical bills on obesity related diseases. Also, GMO's should to be labeled. And, nutrition facts and ingredients should be easily available upon request at all fast food joints and restaurants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne size fits all won't work. People's energy needs vary widely based on age, sex, size, activity level and genetics. And the nanny state is focused on the wrong side of the ledger. The human organism is genetically programmed to be up and about. We were literally born to run, having earned our living chasing big game on the hot (un-air-conditioned) African savanna. The real problem here is our unhealthy desk-bound society. People can change that, but like all cultural change it will take an effort similar to the efforts that banished Jim Crow and public smoking. Perhaps this will be us baby boomers' last mission before we ride off into the sunset.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny info that can help people make better informed choices with little or no cost has to be a good thing. Geojellyroll needs to remember that we are not all born with his/hers giant intellect. This is obvious when you look about and see the poor choices many of us make in life (not just food). Any research that helps point to making better choices in life has to be worthwhile, for the individuals and for society.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat surprises me is the apparent claim what you can walk off a burger in 2.6 miles. I've always understood that exercise as a way of keeping your weight down is vastly overrated, and the equivalent burger distance is way over two-and-a-half miles.
The sad fact is, there's only one way to keep your weight down, and that's to cut down on eating.
I like this. It reminds people of the link between food and what it's there for - to help us to actually do things (as well as keeping us warm). I also like that the label isn't about pointless workouts in gyms which produce nothing, but the most basic human movement of all, walking, which almost anybody can do and which gets us outside in the real world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes we do also need to change the way we grow, process and sell food, so that it's easier for people to eat in ways that help them stay healthy and which are also good for farm animals, wildlife, soil, water, and the climate. (I don't believe in taxing food, though I wouldn't mind a tax on sugary or fizzy drinks because they're not proper food.)
And yes we need to change our society so that more people do more physical work or have more time to actually move by themselves, not just in cars.
But food is also linked with a whole load of other things, and it isn't simple.
As for the suggestion that anybody over 18 is an adult and that therefore there is no role for any government to do anything whatsoever - how come the world's in such a mess then? It's not as if it's being run by children. In fact governments are there to protect us from the abuses of something far worse than the so-called nanny state - the richest and most powerful and most unbalanced people. If it weren't for the hard work in the past by activists, unions, and responsible legislators, most of us would still be slaves or serfs and we'd be living in misery while the elite had more of an unfair share of wealth and power than even the obscene amount they have now.
The worst things in our world - war, violence, injustice, environmental destruction - are caused by people who are over 18 but who behave like spoilt or abused toddlers.
Possibly because that's precisely what they were once. We need to make our societies more equal and fair, and above all to make sure all children have a happy childhood. Then they are far less likely to become addicted to comfort eating and other unhealthy habits, and they're more likely to live long, healthy, productive, happy lives.
OK, one more time. Being overweight is NOT a result of overeating, any more than excessive height is a result of overeating. Excessive eating is the result of out-of-control fat tissue. Adipose tissue (fat) responds to hormonal stimuli just like every other organ in your body. Look it up in any standard medical text, it is not controversial. In the presence of elevated levels of the right hormone (insulin) adipose cells respond by taking in fuel, either glucose or free fatty acids. Once inside the cell, these fuels are converted to triglycerides and the cell becomes larger. Multiply this by all the fat cells and the person becomes fat. The reason fat people eat more is that their fuel is being highjacked by fat cells, and the rest of the body is still hungry. Fat cells are not "garbage cans" that simply take in whatever extra fuel is available. Fat cells have demands based primarily on insulin level. Eating carbs, by the way, elevates serum insulin levels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor those still on a "calories in, calories out" nonsense, here's one more thing to think about. Have you ever wondered if eating the same, exact food type and quantity always results in the same number of calories being absorbed by your body? Think about it. In order for food to become calories in the blood stream, an enormous number of enzymatic actions have to take place. Those enzymes are released by the body to extract fuel, and it is highly likely that the amount of fuel extracted is governed by the current needs of the body, just like the kidneys concentrate urine depending on the body's current need for water. I can find no studies exploring this topic, and it appears that all CI,CO adherents assume that one ounce of some type of food always, always, always results in the exact same amount of fuel entering the bloodstream. This is a patently absurd assumption! Calorie (fuel) absorption, based on current needs, is almost guaranteed. And, if absorption is a variable, based on current need, how can calorie counting ever possibly be a solution to weight control? The real solution is getting insulin levels under control.
Based on the article the old rule of thumb of 100 calories per mile still stands. That math is too hard? Of course that isn't precise, but the actual calories in something are only an approximation, so it's close enough.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think 250 cal for a regular burger is an underestimate. I looked on a Burger King website, and it said 325 cal.A Whopper Double Beef has 916 cal!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs illustrated, exercise is a bad way of losing weight, especially if you are obese. Walking a few miles is an absolute no-no!
I think this idea is very good, however. It will make people think before they eat.
Because bad habits can be attributed as much, if not more, to the environment a person lives in than to their "self-control" or ability to "eat like an adult". Many of the nation's poorest live in food deserts, where access to healthy food is scarce and access to these so-called un-adult choices is abundant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you worked 1.5-2 jobs at minimum wage, you might not have time to make it to the grocery store/cook a healthy dinner even if the grocery store was right around the corner and you had a car to use to drive yourself. Many people who have less money, less free time and more limited access to transportation are making the most rational decision they can in the environment that has been built around them.
Can you even imagine being in a position where you feed your kids McDonalds instead of better food so that you might have enough money to save up for their future? Is it really surprising that so many people assume that food, by virtue of being sustenance for sale, should not be detrimental to your health?
You, presumably, have enough control over the circumstances of your life that eating well is a choice, and as a result, you look at people who don't eat well as people who have made the bad choice that you work to avoid. Please realize that not everyone has the same options as you. If you're within walking distance of a fresh vegetable, you can't really make judgments about someone who'd need to take an 90-minute roundtrip by bus between their day shift and the night shift. If you were that person, you'd eat McDonalds every day, and not out of stupidity or even laziness. It's because our laws allow the bottom-quality option to be a health-destructive option, which means we're satisfied to allow the people who are stuck eating bottom-quality food to destroy their health (until, of course, someone brings up the costs of doing so).
We need to make sure that the worst, lowest-quality food that money can buy, isn't fundamentally unhealthy when consumed regularly. Can you imagine if fast food restaurants had to put signs on their doors saying "Eating here every day, or multiple times a day, may be detrimental to your health"? If such establishments were forced to make clear the effects of their product, you'd better believe that they would improve the quality.
The problem is our evolved species, Homosapiens Hopeless. Even if the human population could grasp the basics of metabolism, caloric intake, and nutrition, it would not matter. Our lack of strenous activity, and our self preservation and self indulgent human behaviors would still induce us to keep eating sweets and fatty foods, and gain weight.
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