We may think that eating a sensible salad at dinner followed by a fudge brownie will balance each other out calorie-wise, the fact of the matter is that people who balance their calories this way are actually more likely to be consuming more calories than they need. The result of this can be seen in America’s ongoing struggle with obesity.
A recent survey on eating habits showed that of the 934 participants, very few were able to accurately estimate the number of calories they had eaten in four separate meals. Some 50 percent of those questioned were asked to calculate the calories in high-fat, high-carb meals, such as hefty cheeseburgers or cheesesteaks made with pepperoni or meatballs. The other 50 percent had to come up with a calorie count for these same foods, along with healthy side dishes such as apples, celery or a small salad.
The study revealed that the participants’ idea of how many calories were in the various items were based on which they looked at first – the high-fat item or the healthy side dish. The participants who were shown a cheeseburger first estimated an average calorie count of about 699. While the participants who first viewed a salad and then the cheeseburger said the meal had only 656 calories on average.
Clearly, our eyes can play tricks on us when it comes to counting calories. According to the findings, people think if they combine a healthy dish with something more fattening, they will really be eating fewer calories. This tendency to see more food as less can lead people to consume more than their body needs – a fact that becomes disturbing in light of the current obesity epidemic in the United States.
An interesting result gleaned from the survey dealt with the perceptions of caloric intake that were given by people who were dieting. In general, the dieters were more likely to underestimate the number of calories in various meals. And when the findings from this group were compared to the statistics from people who didn’t care what they weighed, the dieters underestimated their calorie consumption by twice as much as the non-dieters.
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