We’re all so confused about what we are supposed to eat. Every day there’s a new study or a new recommendation. Calories feel like an old fashioned way of approaching what you eat whilst high fat foods like butter are meant to be good for you. Does anyone actually have any definitive advice about what’s good for us?
At some point in our lives we've all tried to count our daily calorie intake and supposedly, we more less know how to count them and what that means on our body weight. Turns out though, we know nothing at all.
Researchers from Behavioural Insights Team have done a study into why we report a much lower calorie intake than in previous years, and yet we have a bigger problem with obesity. What they found out is super interesting. Rather than eating 2,000 calories a day, as we should, they found out that we're actually eating closer to 3,000.
So, are we lying? Or are they?
It's a bit of both. First of all we eat out a lot more at restaurants and places where we are not certain about what our meal contains. Also, we snack a lot. I mean - who doesn’t eat a waffle, banana or a cookie between meals? We all do but we don’t report it.
Another reason is the 'growing discrepancy between reference data (used to calculate calories) and true portion sizes or food energy density'. Basically we think we know how many calories certain meals contain. But well, we don’t.
Last but not least, less and less people respond to surveys- which means there’s a smaller group of respondents, a smaller group for scientists to work with.
With all the research coming out these days, it's hard to know what to trust. I’ll think I'll just stick with my mom’s home cooked dinner? At least it’s super yummy and I’m sure she won’t stress me with calorie counting.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.