We eat 900 more calories a day than we admit

BRITONS typically consume 900 more calories a day than they are prepared to admit, a study has found.

This is the equivalent of three cheeseburgers or seven packets of crisps – consumption which is either ignored or denied.

Researchers recruited 221 people for the study, aged 19 to 89, asking them to keep a diary of their food intake.

Then they measured the calories these people burned to see whether the amount they said they ate was accurate.

It was found that they did not mention about 900 calories of food a day – with women slightly more likely than men to under-report their meals and snacks.

Professor Gavin Sandercock, who led the study at the University of Essex, said: ‘These findings suggest that people lie to themselves when it comes to their diet. We like to think we are healthier than the reality, and so don’t like to keep track of the comfort food, the mid-morning snacks or the one-off treats we have had. People may need to focus a bit more to remain healthy.’

The research was inspired by a national survey showing that calories typically consumed in the UK had fallen from 2,000 a day in the 1980s to 1,878 a day in 2011 – less than the recommended daily amount for both men and women.

The obesity crisis suggested these figures could not be right and the Essex researchers decided to find out with a diet survey. The subjects said they ate around 1,800 calories a day on average but were found to burn around 2,700 a day.

Professor Sandercock said: ‘People may be embarrassed by what they eat because there is so much pressure, particularly on women, to be thin.’

The study, published in the American Journal of Human Biology, found the obese were no more likely to under-report the calories they ate.

Doing this was more common in under-55s and those whose energy expenditure showed they were more physically active.

That is because these people tend to use more energy, so eat more, making it harder to keep track. Researchers gave people a small amount of mildly radioactive water and used urine samples taken over ten days to judge the calories they burned.

The urine shows the amount of carbon left in the body after burned calories are exhaled as carbon dioxide.

Professor Sandercock added: ‘It has been suggested obese people are more likely to lie about their diet because they feel worse about their weight, but we all do it.’

Analysis this week revealed the proportion of obese people will surpass those of a healthy weight by the end of the decade.

Cancer Research UK said there could be an extra six million obese Britons by 2040.

The Government has delayed a ban on ‘buy one get one free’ offers on junk food in light of the cost of living crisis.

‘Focus more to try to remain healthy’