There’s currently a rising popularity in “healthy” foods, but obesity rates are going up at the same time. Why?

There’s currently a rising popularity in “healthy” foods, but obesity rates are going up at the same time. Why?
Researchers Pierre Chandon (INSEAD, France) and Brian Wansink (Cornell University) set out to deter­mine why we are eating healthier food and still gaining weight. 

Chandon and Wansink found that it’s most likely due to the “health halo effect”, meaning when consum­ers hear that there’s a fast-food restaurant that has “low-calorie” foods, they overgeneralize that all or most of the foods in the restaurant are “healthy.” And that’s just not the case.

 

 In fact, consumers estimated that sandwiches from “healthier” fast-food restaurants contained 35 percent fewer calories than they actually had. And not only that, but as a result of their underestimation, consumers then felt it was okay to load up on beverages, side dishes and desserts containing up to 131 percent more calories when the main course they ordered was advertised as “healthy” as compared to when it was not.  But in their study, Chandon and Wansink found the sandwiches positioned as healthy already contained 50 percent more calories than the “unhealthy” sand­wiches. 

What’s a consumer to do? One strategy is to examine whether “low-calorie” claims by restaurants apply to the particular foods you plan on ordering. Learning to think of food in terms of the number of calories rather than whether it is a “good food” or a “bad food.”  Restaurant Consultants, The Next Idea, reported in 2004, that the larger Fast Food and restaurant chain operators, were unlikely to truly recognize the impact their products were having on the population at large.

The Next Idea, CEO, Robert Ancill says, ‘since 2004 not too much has changed, and while operators are more inclined to place Healthy Options on their menus, many [operators] still provide over sized portions, questionable ingredients, along with unhealthy desserts and soda drinks’. Ancill goes on to say that; ‘only when restaurant groups demand more from their food vendors, and help educate their customers to eat a balanced meal, will the consumer begin to benefit from Health foods’.