Calories underestimated in "healthy" restaurants
NEW YORK, Sep 15 (Reuters) People who opt for a meal at a ''healthy'' restaurant often consume more calories than they would dining at fast food joints that make no health claims, a new study shows.
The researchers found that individuals underestimate the calorie content of foods served at restaurants they see as healthier, to a degree that could easily lead to weight gain.
For example, ''People think that the same 1,000-calorie meal has 159 fewer calories if it comes from Subway than if it comes from McDonalds,'' Dr Pierre Chandon, at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, told Reuters Health. ''If they choose to consume this fictitious 'calorie credit' on other food, and it they eat at Subway twice a week, they could gain an extra 4.9 pounds a year.'' While restaurants presenting themselves as healthy have grown at a much faster rate over the past five years than traditional fast food restaurants, Americans' waistlines have not been shrinking; in fact, the nation's population is fatter than ever, note Chandon and his colleague Dr. Brian Wansink of Cornell University in Ithaca in their report in the Journal of Consumer Research.
The researchers theorized that people might take in more calories when they eat in ''healthy'' restaurants, and conducted a series of studies to test this notion.
In the first, they asked people who had just finished eating at Subway or McDonalds to estimate how many calories they had just consumed. On average, Subway patrons rated their meals as having 151 fewer calories than did McDonalds patrons.
In fact, for a meal at either restaurant containing 1,000 calories, people would estimate it to contain 744 calories if they'd eaten at McDonalds and 585 calories if they'd dined at Subway.
In the second experiment, they asked people to estimate the calorie content of four different sandwiches: a six-inch ham and cheese sandwich (330 calories) and a 12-inch turkey sandwich (600 calories) from Subway; and a McDonalds cheeseburger (330 calories) and a Big Mac (600 calories). Study participants consistently rated the Subway sandwich as having fewer calories than the McDonalds sandwich with the same calorie content.
Next, the researchers offered people a coupon for a Big Mac (600 calories) or a Subway 12-inch Italian BMT sandwich (900 calories), and asked them whether they would like to order a drink or cookies with their sandwich. People eating the Subway sandwich were more likely to choose a large drink, less likely to opt for diet soda, and more likely to get cookies. This meant that, on average, they wound up consuming 1,011 calories, compared to 648 calories for the people given a McDonalds coupon.
People
who
want
to
control
their
weight
or
trim
down
need
to
think
objectively
about
calorie
content,
and
not
let
their
perceptions
be
clouded
by
whether
a
food
is
supposed
to
be
good
or
bad
for
them,
Chandon
said.
''We
have
to
move
away
from
thinking
of
food
in
'good
food
/
bad
food'
(terms)
and
think
also
about
'how
much
food.'
In
France,
for
example,
people
enjoy
relatively
fat
diets
but
are
less
overweight
simply
because
portion
sizes
in
restaurants
and
at
home
are
smaller.''
Chandon
suggested
one
technique
to
help
people
judge
calorie
counts
more
accurately:
''Instead
of
estimating
the
number
of
calories
of
the
whole
meal
(which
leads
to
undercounting)
look
at
the
sandwich,
the
side,
the
beverages,
and
the
drink
and
add
that
up.
Our
research
showed
that
this
'piecemeal'
method
is
very
effective.''
REUTERS
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