Making Calorie Information Meaningful

Posted By elissa on Dec 19, 2011 | 1 comment

Now here’s an idea for communicating the caloric consequences of eating/drinking junk!

Displaying the amount of time you’d need to jog in order to burn off the calories from a sugary drink, rather than showing a calorie count, may be more effective in dissuading you from consuming those beverages, new research suggests.

Researchers observed teenagers at stores in West Baltimore, where signs displayed either calorie counts, calorie counts as a percent of recommended daily calorie intake, or the time spent jogging that would be needed to burn off those calories. While all led teenagers to purchase fewer sugary beverages, the conversion to exercise minutes was the most effective.

…”It was a very interesting study, and I think most Americans would be floored to learn it takes 50 minutes to burn off one 20-ounce bottle of soda, basically a nutritionally worthless beverage,” said Julie Greenstein, deputy director of health promotion policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a health and nutrition advocacy group.

I like it. Simply presenting calorie information isn’t as useful as it might be, because it takes some prior knowledge and awareness to put it into perspective. Providing an estimate of the caloric impact makes it much more meaningful.