When Cheeseburger = Walking, Will We Eat Less?
spud_chick
Posts: 2,640 Member
I found this online after seeing a blurb about it on the Morning Rush news a little while ago. In summary, there's been a lot of talk about making calorie counts more available on restaurant menus, but this suggests also offering exercise equivalents as well. A researcher at Texas Christian University says that showing calorie counts on menus did not affect diner's choices (at all, apparently), but showing how long they'd have to walk to burn it off caused them to both order fewer calories and eat less of them.
The smaller feature that leaps out at me here is that the selected diners (presumably in Texas, the 11th-ranked state for obesity) don't have even a rough understanding of their own calorie needs. The calories are just a number that would mean something to anyone counting calories or those who simply have a rough idea of their own daily calorie needs. The exercise equivalent is a number with a chore attached to it, although I bet that experience created a lot of dismay that could cause the diners to abandon watching their intake rather than learning more to put it in perspective. But it's certainly an interesting result, and shows that most people probably need more information in addition to more 'motivation'.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/04/23/178632857/when-cheeseburger-walking-will-we-eat-less
Nutrition labeling has been required on packaged food since 1990, and the new federal food safety law will require calorie counts to be posted for restaurant food — all in an effort to get the American public to eat healthier.
But most studies on calorie count labels show they don't do much to nudge people toward better food choices. If I want that oh-so-delicious Chunky Monkey ice cream, knowing that a half-cup serving delivers 300 calories and 18 grams of fat isn't going to stop me.
But what if I knew that it would take me an hour and 20 minutes of brisk walking to burn off those Chunky Monkey calories? Would I think twice?
Probably, says Ashlei James, a graduate student at Texas Christian University. She tested how much people ate when given menus with labels that stated how much brisk walking would be required to burn off the calories in a given food item. She compared that to menus with calorie counts, and those with no information, and tracked how much people ordered and ate.
The menus with and without calorie counts had no effect on how much the 300 participants, ages 18 to 30, ordered and ate. But the people who saw the walking times listed ordered fewer of the burgers, fries, chicken tenders, salad, dessert, sodas and water on the menu. They ordered less food, and ate less, too.
"Consumers should become more aware of how much exercise it takes to burn the calories from energy-dense foods," says Meena Shah, a professor of nutrition at TCU, and James' mentor. "Once people learn that it takes an hour or two to burn calories from one food item, they might think twice."
It would take a woman two hours of walking to burn off a double cheeseburger, the researchers said.
The research was presented in Boston at the Experimental Biology 2013 meeting, so it hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But other studies have also found a benefit from putting the amount of exercise needed to burn a food choice front and center.
In 2011, researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that, when they put labels on soft drinks stating that it would take 50 minutes of jogging to burn off that sugar, teenagers shopping in a corner market were more likely to avoid soda and buy water instead.
And TV chef Jamie Oliver made the point on his show Food Revolution by letting teenagers pick a snack — and then making them walk around a track until they burned off the calories. That approach squares with how the Hopkins researchers viewed their findings.
"Why is it that [listing] the minutes of jogging was most effective?" Sarah Bleich, an assistant professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins, told The Salt back in 2011. "My personal feeling is that jogging works because it's a negative thing."
The idea of matching up food intake with energy expenditure isn't new. The Internet abounds with calorie/exercise calculators (type in "exercise calorie calculator" to find them). And weight-loss programs like Weight Watchers build those calculators into their online tools.
Would knowing how much work it takes to burn off a food persuade you to order differently? Or walk more?
<end of article>
The smaller feature that leaps out at me here is that the selected diners (presumably in Texas, the 11th-ranked state for obesity) don't have even a rough understanding of their own calorie needs. The calories are just a number that would mean something to anyone counting calories or those who simply have a rough idea of their own daily calorie needs. The exercise equivalent is a number with a chore attached to it, although I bet that experience created a lot of dismay that could cause the diners to abandon watching their intake rather than learning more to put it in perspective. But it's certainly an interesting result, and shows that most people probably need more information in addition to more 'motivation'.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/04/23/178632857/when-cheeseburger-walking-will-we-eat-less
Nutrition labeling has been required on packaged food since 1990, and the new federal food safety law will require calorie counts to be posted for restaurant food — all in an effort to get the American public to eat healthier.
But most studies on calorie count labels show they don't do much to nudge people toward better food choices. If I want that oh-so-delicious Chunky Monkey ice cream, knowing that a half-cup serving delivers 300 calories and 18 grams of fat isn't going to stop me.
But what if I knew that it would take me an hour and 20 minutes of brisk walking to burn off those Chunky Monkey calories? Would I think twice?
Probably, says Ashlei James, a graduate student at Texas Christian University. She tested how much people ate when given menus with labels that stated how much brisk walking would be required to burn off the calories in a given food item. She compared that to menus with calorie counts, and those with no information, and tracked how much people ordered and ate.
The menus with and without calorie counts had no effect on how much the 300 participants, ages 18 to 30, ordered and ate. But the people who saw the walking times listed ordered fewer of the burgers, fries, chicken tenders, salad, dessert, sodas and water on the menu. They ordered less food, and ate less, too.
"Consumers should become more aware of how much exercise it takes to burn the calories from energy-dense foods," says Meena Shah, a professor of nutrition at TCU, and James' mentor. "Once people learn that it takes an hour or two to burn calories from one food item, they might think twice."
It would take a woman two hours of walking to burn off a double cheeseburger, the researchers said.
The research was presented in Boston at the Experimental Biology 2013 meeting, so it hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But other studies have also found a benefit from putting the amount of exercise needed to burn a food choice front and center.
In 2011, researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that, when they put labels on soft drinks stating that it would take 50 minutes of jogging to burn off that sugar, teenagers shopping in a corner market were more likely to avoid soda and buy water instead.
And TV chef Jamie Oliver made the point on his show Food Revolution by letting teenagers pick a snack — and then making them walk around a track until they burned off the calories. That approach squares with how the Hopkins researchers viewed their findings.
"Why is it that [listing] the minutes of jogging was most effective?" Sarah Bleich, an assistant professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins, told The Salt back in 2011. "My personal feeling is that jogging works because it's a negative thing."
The idea of matching up food intake with energy expenditure isn't new. The Internet abounds with calorie/exercise calculators (type in "exercise calorie calculator" to find them). And weight-loss programs like Weight Watchers build those calculators into their online tools.
Would knowing how much work it takes to burn off a food persuade you to order differently? Or walk more?
<end of article>
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Replies
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Not a new concept to me--or probably to most people on MFP. I've been known to go to the gym, hop on the stationary bike, and burn exactly as many calories are in the TastyKake I've got waiting for me at home.0
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Not a new concept to me--or probably to most people on MFP. I've been known to go to the gym, hop on the stationary bike, and burn exactly as many calories are in the TastyKake I've got waiting for me at home.
I used to live two miles away from a Dairy Queen. You have no idea how many times I've ran to the Dairy Queen, had my ice cream cone, and ran back to burn it off. A vanilla kids cone is only 170 calories anyway which really isn't that bad for ice cream.0 -
I like it! I actually hope to see this on menu's one day! Thanks for sharing
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Not a new concept to me--or probably to most people on MFP. I've been known to go to the gym, hop on the stationary bike, and burn exactly as many calories are in the TastyKake I've got waiting for me at home.
Righto, nothing new for us here who think in terms of a food and exercise 'budget', but it's an interesting experiment with non-budgeters (apparently).0 -
Makes sense, to someone who doesn't count calories, the numbers really don't mean anything. I can see how telling someone how much they have to do to work it off would put it in perspective for a far greater range of people0
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Seeing the calories and fat content alone are enough to make me change what I'd eat! I went to a greek restaurant the other week and something I'd usually have as a starter to share (a dip) was something like 900 calories!!!!!!!!!!!!! Safe to say I didn't have it! I do think maybe for people who have no concept of calorie counting etc then yes, seeing that to burn off one mars bar or something they'd have to walk for X minutes would help them, rather than just putting the content and nothing else as how will they know if that amount is good or bad!0
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A researcher at Texas Christian University says that showing calorie counts on menus did not affect diner's choices (at all, apparently), but showing how long they'd have to walk to burn it off caused them to both order fewer calories and eat less of them.
We found that people are apathetic to knowledge. (*cough* that's why people still think there is an evolution "debate") However, we found that guilt has introduced a tiny change in some of them. Therefore, we should push the government to introduce new guilt related regulations, it's for the children!
ETA- Personally, I'm against this bs. I go to a restaurant for food, not nutritional or exercise advice or reminders. Cooks and restauranteurs generally don't have the educational background to espouse anything more than bro-science anyway.
I would be more open to it if I went to one of those hippy fluffy raw vegan places because it would be interesting to me, but still stepping far outside their bounds of responsibility into a rather shady area where they have no legitimate business being, and no legitimate business telling me their uneducated opinions. This would only really work for fast food restaurants.0 -
Yeah, if you're on MFP you probably have some vague idea of what a calorie is, or at least how many you're supposed to have in a day, but that makes you the exception. There have been tons of studies that start out trying to show how useful different nutrition labels are but end up showing that the average person has no idea. Which makes sense - if you're used to eating somewhere where "a meal" has 2500 calories, you're going to think that you probably need like 10k in a day. And on the other end, look at all the people even here who think than an hour of housework burns 700 calories - most people think they can burn off a giant Cheesecake Factory dessert by walking around the mall for an hour or so.
People generally know what "minutes" and "walking" are - obviously that's going to be more relevant than a scale measuring something they don't understand in units they can't interpret.0 -
People generally know what "minutes" and "walking" are - obviously that's going to be more relevant than a scale measuring something they don't understand in units they can't interpret.
So how many minutes do I have to walk to enjoy a neutral experience of eating my foie gras torchon?0 -
A researcher at Texas Christian University says that showing calorie counts on menus did not affect diner's choices (at all, apparently), but showing how long they'd have to walk to burn it off caused them to both order fewer calories and eat less of them.
We found that people are apathetic to knowledge. (*cough* that's why people still think there is an evolution "debate") However, we found that guilt has introduced a tiny change in some of them. Therefore, we should push the government to introduce new guilt related regulations, it's for the children!0 -
It wouldn't affect me since I'm already pretty aware of how much it'll take me to burn off a certain amount of calories, but I can see how it would affect the general public.0
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A researcher at Texas Christian University says that showing calorie counts on menus did not affect diner's choices (at all, apparently), but showing how long they'd have to walk to burn it off caused them to both order fewer calories and eat less of them.
We found that people are apathetic to knowledge. (*cough* that's why people still think there is an evolution "debate") However, we found that guilt has introduced a tiny change in some of them. Therefore, we should push the government to introduce new guilt related regulations, it's for the children!
ETA- Personally, I'm against this bs. I go to a restaurant for food, not nutritional or exercise advice or reminders. Cooks and restauranteurs generally don't have the educational background to espouse anything more than bro-science anyway.
I would be more open to it if I went to one of those hippy fluffy raw vegan places because it would be interesting to me, but still stepping far outside their bounds of responsibility into a rather shady area where they have no legitimate business being, and no legitimate business telling me their uneducated opinions. This would only really work for fast food restaurants.
Actually, this study proves people are *not* apathetic to knowledge, but rather find it meaningless unless it's provided in a practical context. According to an educator friend, that's one of the big differences between teaching kids and teaching adults. Adults require a real life example or situation for the new information to register Also, the "guilt" did not produce a tiny change--although the article I was able to find on the study didn't give specifics, the news reporter said that 'nearly all' of those shown the exercise equivalents altered their choices and/or ate less of the food they did order, compared to 'no effect' for those who saw calories only. The difference in reaction to the way the data was presented was considerable.
I do agree that posting exercise times is potentially misleading. It doesn't really help a person with no understanding of their own calorie requirements to put the meal in an *accurate* perspective, but it does better illustrate the comparable impact of a meal on the menu.
However, providing information is not "dictating" anything. It's not telling the guest what to choose or the restaurant what to offer. The study wanted to see if providing different kinds of information had any effect on diner's choices, and shared what they found. Given how long it's taken for a push to see calories on menus, I seriously doubt you will see exercise equivalents being *required* on menus anytime this decade. In fact the requirements they're discussing now will probably wind up being pretty toothless and it probably won't be hard for a business to petition for exclusion based on their size or other features.
More on the legislation planning here (as well as some other stuff, like information on another menu labeling method involving traffic light symbols):
http://www.foodpolitics.com/2013/04/menu-labeling-whats-new/
I would like to see the calorie counts (at minimum) on menus or at least readily available on request. There are some chain restaurants now (not just fast food) that have some nutrition information online but (for no good reason) don't have it available in the actual restaurants. I don't see it as a "nanny state" issue, I see it as a consumer issue. As it already is, restaurants that give calorie information in some form now get about 80% of my eat-out business, but it's a short and increasingly boring list. I would like to be able to go to more places and support more businesses, but not if they're going to ignore what I want as a consumer--some transparency on ingredients and calorie contents, and some genuinely healthy choices.
To me, this is a change that makes sense. Restaurants overload their food with fat, sugar and salt because it tastes good to most people and they feel it makes their food competitive. They don't want to reveal the contents because they're afraid they'll have to give up a competitive edge or lose business when people realize what they've been eating. Making it a requirement to fess up to what's in your product will simply change what's competitive. They don't have to change the whole menu, just be honest about what's on it and offer a few more things for the health/weight conscious besides salad. If some stubborn lard-blooded dinosaurs end up going out of business along the way, well, then.... there's your evolution. Some smart companies are already moving in this direction, if slowly. But many or most are not going to do it voluntarily, because they want to be allowed to keep hiding the excessive calorie contents of their food. To me, that is contrary to the rights of the consumer.0 -
Information like that causes me to eat a little less, but more than that, I exercise a lot more!
Once you start tracking, you start realizing you have to put in good exercise to create more "room" in the budget.0 -
I actually LOVE this idea. It gives me a 2nd look at how much the meal I choose will "cost" me, and will have me thinking twice before eating the food that is the worst for me. However, in the event that I choose to still eat it, I pretty much already have an estimate of how much working out I would need to do (or walking in this instance) in order to burn off what I ate. I do this anyway. If I know I want to get chickfila for dinner on Saturdays (or something to this effect) then I will literally do zumba/jog/walk whatever it takes to burn enough calories to allow me to get what I want. I typically always burn enough to have a spicy chicken cool wrap with fries and icecream cone and STILL be within my calorie goal. I love thinking of calories as I do money, budget budget budget.0
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However, providing information is not "dictating" anything. It's not telling the guest what to choose or the restaurant what to offer.
That is patently false. It dictates what the restaurant can and cannot do, it also dictates that the restaurant takes an unfair liability. It also conditions the consumer to not be responsible for their own actions or choices.
Nanny lovers are all over this, but frankly it's a stupid idea.
It's also something completely unrealistic for all except for chains and fast food vendors. It sounds great on paper, but it's all bs, and any consumer thinking they're getting real information is kidding themselves.
ETA- when i do finally open my brewpub, I'm not giving calorie counts. No way, no how. I don't want that legal liability, or have any part in making people lazier.0 -
Would knowing how much work it takes to burn off a food persuade you to order differently? Or walk more?
Most likely, yes to both. There would be days when I'd think "Eh, it's just one meal" and not care, but most days it would matter. I pretty much think that way anyway. I definitely would like to see it in restaurants. Though, it would still only be a very rough estimate based on the calories in a tested meal.0 -
However, providing information is not "dictating" anything. It's not telling the guest what to choose or the restaurant what to offer.
That is patently false. It dictates what the restaurant can and cannot do, it also dictates that the restaurant takes an unfair liability. It also conditions the consumer to not be responsible for their own actions or choices.
Nanny lovers are all over this, but frankly it's a stupid idea.
It's also something completely unrealistic for all except for chains and fast food vendors. It sounds great on paper, but it's all bs, and any consumer thinking they're getting real information is kidding themselves.
ETA- when i do finally open my brewpub, I'm not giving calorie counts. No way, no how. I don't want that legal liability, or have any part in making people lazier.
Any restaurant that controls the ingredient quantities going into their dishes (also known as Following a Recipe), which many do for the sake of both consistency and inventory, should be easily able to determine the calories in the dish. I cook by the light of nature at home sometimes, no recipe, but now I measure what I'm putting in.
And my statement was not false. Providing information, either calories or exercise equivalents, on the menu doesn't dictate the guests' behavior or the restaurant owner's menu choices, it only informs the consumer. If you want to argue about restaurants being *required* to provide this information, that's a *separate issue*. And you can argue that with someone else because I am going to agree to disagree with you on that subject. It is my opinion that it is not a business-crippling burden for the restaurants to collect the information and make it available. You and others may disagree. That topic (and the purported "laziness" of people who want the calorie data on menus, or stupidity of counting calories at all) has been beaten to death on other threads. I posted this article because I thought the results of the study were interesting.
Good luck with your brewpub.0 -
Do these exercise suggestions (which I am neutral about, to be perfectly clear) take into account the customer's sex, weight, and height? How would they know how many minutes any one person would need to run to burn off a particular dish? The answer is: they don't, so it's useless to post that 'information'. Just post calorie counts and people that CHOOSE to care about those things will do something with that information.0
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Personally, the calories on the menu's HAVE persuaded me into making better choices. Often the things I intended on ordering are the higher calorie items on the menu so I would change my mind at the last minute in fear of having the waitress think I was a total cow. LOL
Maybe start showing some pictures of obese people and diseased organs. Yeah, then people might order salad.
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Do these exercise suggestions (which I am neutral about, to be perfectly clear) take into account the customer's sex, weight, and height? How would they know how many minutes any one person would need to run to burn off a particular dish? The answer is: they don't, so it's useless to post that 'information'. Just post calorie counts and people that CHOOSE to care about those things will do something with that information.
That's why I said I think they will be misleading without additional data, perhaps listed on the back of the menu. It's probably an average for a person who weighs about 150 or 160 lbs, which they would need to explain, as well as giving broad daily *maintenance level* requirements for men and women in different weight ranges so people know how to put it in perspective.
Averages are tricky. I've seen blurbs about how it burns 'about' 100 calories to go a mile whether you're walking or running, and I'm sure we all know that varies a lot in reality, from person to person. However, couching the calorie cost in exercise terms seems to have made a big impression on the test subjects that listing calories simply did not.
My hope would be that any restaurant adopting it would be sure to put a little more information elsewhere on the menu, including where they can go to learn more. Most people don't know how cheap (free!) and simple it is to join a site like this and start counting calories. It sounds far too tedious and difficult until you see how easy they've made it. I never thought I'd be a calorie counter, now I'm a believer.
I don't think restaurants will adopt anything like exercise equivalents, but I could easily see schools and universities doing it.0
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