I’m counting the cost of calories
THE Royal Society for Public Health wants junk foods to carry labels that say how much physical activity is needed to burn off the calories they contain.
Professor Amanda Daley of Loughborough University said: “Many do not understand the meaning of calories or fat in terms of energy balance.”
The idea is that giving people the information in a form that is easier to interpret could raise their awareness and encourage them to cut 200 calories per person per day and help prevent obesity. The NHS recommends a daily intake of 2,500 calories a day for men and 2,000 for women.
Examples given are that a bowl of cereals contains 172 calories and to burn those off you would need to walk for 31 minutes or run for 16 minutes.
Get the idea?
How about a mid-morning coffee? A medium mocha is 290 calories and takes 53 minutes of walking. A can of pop is 138 calories (26 minutes walking), a chicken and bacon sandwich is 445 calories (82 minutes walking), a blueberry muffin is 400 calories (78 minutes walking), a bar of chocolate 229 calories (42 minutes walking) and a bag of crisps 171 calories (31 minutes walking).
Then the message in the report I read gets a little esoteric:
A mince pie is 280 calories (30 minutes on a rowing machine) and a cheeseburger 313 calories (30 minutes of kick-boxing).
Kick-boxing? At my age? Apart from the cereals, this lot is classified as junk food. It could also be seen as sustenance for a day. The total calories for it is 2,438, which is within the recommendation for men and only a blueberry muffin away for women.
But if I wanted to shed the calories it contained, I would have to walk five hours and 43 minutes. My half-an-hour on a rowing machine would be spent drifting in exhaustion without benefit of oars and I would have a note from my mam excusing kickboxing on the grounds of a bad back and conscientious objection.