OK, WTF United States. Calories?

[hazelsteapot]

You know how all the "Nutrition Facts" things are based on a 2000 calorie diet?

THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION recommends 2792.

(That would mean that our nutrition labels are telling us to eat 28.5% too little food. As in, over a quarter.)

(Not, of course, that I can find where this figure came from)

Comments

[lochan]

According to the lady who did nutrition at ncsa (who has a masters in it), creating a "recommended" caloric intake is pretty silly for people in situations where they don't have to worry about malnutrition. Things like average height, current body mass, how muscular you are, and then obvious things like how much exercise you get on a daily basis, play a huge role in determining an individual's recommended caloric intake. So, for example, maybe the quoted number above would be accurate for someone whose job relies on physical activity (like a farmer or construction worker or preschool teacher even) or for someone who is just tall and somewhat muscular naturally and has a higher metabolism but not for someone with a semi-sedentary or sedentary job (such as a high school English teacher--oh wait, me!) so for them (or simply someone smaller) the number would be much lower. I do take your point that 2000 C is probably too low for many people, but the whole idea of an "average" is kind of absurd to begin with.

Anyway, don't get mad at me. Your point is well taken and I do agree with it. But, rather than giving a number which would be probably accurate for some and way off for others, I think the US should focus on teaching people to recognize when they are full. The body is pretty awesome at self-regulation so long as we let it.

[hazelsteapot]

Agreed.

Or, you know, teach that size isn't connected to health in any simplistic one-size-fits-all way, or to moral status at all, and that your body will tend toward the size it wants/diets don't work (so eat till you're full, not more not less, except in special circumstances.)...

[hazelsteapot]

oh, and "one-size-fits-all" was only sort-of intentional as a pun, but it's apt, I think.

basically: Average, smaverage. like you said.

[hazelsteapot]

Also, playing around with calorie calculators, while I was working at Whole Foods, 2000 calories appears to be slightly less than my rock-bottom, starvation diet, eat less than this and you're in trouble (which I know I didn't always meet, but if I told people I was eating that much they'd think I was eating just fine, not disordered-eatingly), whereas now it's about my lose-a-pound-a-day, which is, um, not super great either (losing 30 lbs/month? No thnx.).

I am distrustful of calculators.

[lochan]

yeah, and if we're going by calculators, the two I tried gave me pretty different results (1600 and 1860) but at any rate, given that the exercise I get on a daily basis involves biking the two (and a half) minutes to work and yelling at my students, also the fact that I am 5'5'', means that 2790 would be...rather above a maintenance diet for me? But at any rate, I am not an average height/sized lady (woo, short genes in a tall family. Way to make me feel adopted, height genes!).

Re: I am distrustful of my writing ability

[lochan]

also please ignore the fact that I used "at any rate" twice in three sentences.

[bananaspice]

I agree with you, and I also think it would do so much good to teach people to listen to their bodies to tell them what types of food to eat, rather than these constant goings-on everywhere about "healthy foods" versus "unhealthy foods"... I think if you need certain nutrients, you generally start to want foods with those nutrients in them, and learning to recognise what your own body needs is probably a whole lot more healthy than basing your diet off of articles in magazines about healthy eating! Just a personal pet-peeve of mine. =)