Diet: Why you can't do what you know you should

Even as people understand more about what they should eat to stay slim or lose weight, they don't do it. Proof of that is an annual state-by-state obesity report by CalorieLab. For the third year running, Mississippi takes the prize for the fattest state, with 31.6% of the population obese. Colorado is the slimmest -- only 18.4% of them are obese. California, which inched up 0.4% to 23.1% since 2007, still manged to drop in the national rankings from 36th fattest state to 41st. But it's not anything Californians did. Rather, the state dropped because people in a lot of other states got even fatter.

It's not a pretty picture, and the Department of Agriculture released a study this month that helps explain why it's so hard to eat right. Dietary knowledge is not enough, the report concludes.

What gets in the way of eating whole grains, fruits and vegetables, fish, modest amounts of low-fat chicken and meat is not lack of information. It is, well ... life.

Using data from federal food surveys, researchers found that stress and hunger get in the way of good dietary habits. On a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet, people who wait five hours between meals compared with four hours will eat 52 more calories in that next meal. If they hold off another hour and wait six hours between meals, they'll gobble up an additional 91 calories. And, researchers found, they'll make less-healthy food choices when they do eat.

Where they eat makes a difference. People who eat at a restaurant eat an average of 107 more calories per meal than if they had eaten at home.

Using work hours as a proxy for stress, researchers found that people who work longer hours wait longer between meals, and eat more calories. People who work consume more calories than those who stay home, and the more they work, the more they eat.

"At four hours between meals, an individual who works 40 a week is estimated to eat about 20% more calories than someone who is not employed. At eight hours between meals, the calorie discrepancy jumps to nearly 40%," according to the report.

Knowledge does make some difference, however. A person who scored 50 on the USDA's Diet and Health Knowledge Survey will eat 28% more calories when eating away from home. A person with a score of 100 will eat only 12% more.

-- Susan Brink

Photo: Gordon M. Grant/Bloomberg News

Comments

[Food Diary]

That's all true, and combined with the fact that easy, inexpensive food today is so much higher in calories and lower in nutrition than it used to be, and there's your epidemic right there. But the bottom line for each individual is not to look for something to blame and then to shrug it off because it's not our fault. In the end we're the only ones responsible for what we put in our mouths and how much exercise we get. Knowledge and discipline is key. Easier said than done, of course, but we make our own choices.

[Kami Gray]

Eating frequent meals at home is by far the best way to avoid packing on the pounds. Realistically, most of us eat meals on the go. I took my daughter to college out-of-state recently. I stayed in a hotel and we were running around most of the day picking up things for her dorm room. It was literally impossible to find something healthy to eat. Basically, we were stuck with chain restaurants or fast food. It's challenging to shop at a grocery store without access to a kitchen. We managed to find a deli and ordered some sliced turkey and a fruit salad and the rest of the time relied on chains like PF Changs which at least had fish, chicken, and vegetables. In general, however, American restaurants serve high calorie, high fat, low quality food. Pizza doesn't need to be fattening. Pizza can be made on whole wheat crust with light mozzerella and a lean meat like chicken with assorted vegetables. American consumers need to start requesting better, healthier options, and need to not compromise their health if only fattening food is available. I personally would rather not eat than eat a pastry at Starbucks.