Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Shortcomings of our Calorie Counting System


For many Americans who don't want to fit the stereotype of an obese fast-food binger, calorie counting is an important aspect of daily life. When it comes time for weight loss, we try hard to plan healthy meals, get in some cardio, and deplete our snacking. However, the system which has been used around the world to estimate the calories in our food has been around since the turn of the 19th to 20th century. "Our current system for assessing calories is surely wrong," said evolutionary biologist Richard Wrangham of Harvard University, at a meeting for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This system has some obvious flaws, and has recently been deemed inaccurate and impractical.

One major aspect where the system is inaccurate, is the estimate of calories for cooked food. When heat denatures proteins or gelatinizes the collagen in meat, it affects the amount of calories in the food, leading to inaccurate assumptions about the calories being consumed. Also, the way different food is processed or cooked can make them easier to digest, resulting in a different amount of net calories. For instance, take starch in cereal kernels such as barley grains or beans, and compare them to the same cereals ground into flour or process it into breakfast cereal. The latter is easier to digest. 

So why does all this really matter? Well, we are currently in the midst of an obesity epidemic, and counting calories has definitely been misleading, according to David Ludwig, a pediatric endocrinologist at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School. How the body processes different foods in different ways matters. However, there are many other things that this system doesn't take into account. Age, gender, height, stress level, and other factors seem to make a big difference in how much a person can eat and still maintain the same weight.

So, whether this makes scientists more likely to spend a multitude of effort revising and recalculating our calorie counting system, or it makes a majority of people less likely to obsess over counting calories is hard to tell. I hope people who want to lose more weight are able to do so by making healthy decisions and choosing better meals, rather than counting calories on a system which is clearly flawed. What do you think, is the system really as important as they are making it out to be if we have been using it for centuries? Or is it a possible excuse for why calorie counting simply doesn't work for some?

Lindsey Dugas (1)
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/02/have-we-been-miscounting-calorie.html?ref=hp


7 comments:

  1. Do you think it is a wise allocation of resources and effort to try and revise our calorie counting system? To me it sounds like it's going to be almost impossible to create a system that accurately reflects the amount of calories that are actually in different foods. Furthermore, I'm not even sure of the value in accurately figuring out the calories contents of foods. There is so much variation in the amount of calories that individuals need in order to be healthy based upon the needs of their body and their lifestyle. Also, two foods with equal calorie content could still have very different effects on a person’s body. For example, eating whole grains, which are metabolized slower than white grains, are going to have a different effects on the body and health consequences.

    Posted by Sean McDougall

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    1. I agree. There is so much variation in the amount of calories different humans need depending on their weight, height, physical activity, and specific metabolism. That is why a new system might not be worth the resources and effort to revise our calorie counting system.

      Lindsey Dugas (1)

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  2. I think people should be looking at the types of food that they are eating instead of counting calories. For instance I think it's better to eat smaller meals containing the right kinds of complex carbohydrates and good fats in order to ensure a healthy diet. I do agree that maybe the current calorie system maybe flawed so it should be revised to take into account everything that scientist know today.

    Posted by Poya Jafari

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. It really is better to eat smaller meals containing better quality food than eating the same amount of calories in junk food. So caloric intake isn't always the best way to determine how healthy someone is eating.

      Lindsey Dugas (1)

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  3. I think that people should focus more on just making healthier life decisions and eat healthy foods and partake in physical activities they enjoy doing instead of counting calories. Counting calories is extremely difficult to maintain and obviously is inaccurate according to this article, so I don't believe people interested in weight loss should do that. This article definitely made me think twice about counting calories now and instead just enjoying all food and just watching my portions instead to stay healthy.

    Gabrielle Wertheim (3)

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    1. We as humans should definitely focus on making healthier decisions instead of simply counting calories, especially now that the system has been proved to be flawed. Counting calories is just a small part of losing weight and I think there are much more important things to focus on!

      Lindsey Dugas (1)

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