Would new label influence food choices?
If the calorie count on labels doesn't make you feel guilty enough, imagine seeing right on the front of packaging how much you would have to exercise to burn off your favorite foods.
Apparently officials from Britain's Royal Society of Public Health, are toying with the idea of stamping junk food labels with graphics of stick figures running, biking and swimming accompanied with the amount of time an individual would have to do those activities in order to burn off the calories in the foods.
It's said these new labels would help people decide what to eat — or more important, what not to eat — by changing our psychology and the way we think about food and its staple in our lives.
I sort of equate this idea to the movie "In Time." In the movie, time is the currency and people are in a constant struggle to justify spending it because each purchase deducts minutes from their lives. For instance, a cup of coffee costs four minutes. Well, these new food labels are sort of same deal, except a 16-ounce Starbucks caramel frappuccino will cost you $4.45 and 45 minutes on the treadmill — trust me, I did the math.
I'm not saying these new labels are bad, but I'm not sure if they would really change anything. Would they make people think twice about that third slice of pizza?
In a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin online poll nearly 60 percent of respondents said it would. Which is the exact result British health officials got when they asked the same question.
One reader said she runs half-marathons and has tried without success to compute the food she eats as distance or time running. She said the labels would make this clear and validate whether her training is adequate.
But don't people already know more calories equals more exercise if you're in the market to lose or maintain weight? Maybe not.
Deb Guenterberg, a registered dietitian at Prevea Health, said a lot of people really struggle to read food labels and understand what those totals mean in the context of their lifestyle.
She said the labels are an excellent idea, and she believes people would really take notice. Moreover, she said the labels would simplify an otherwise complex series of numbers, percentages and categories.
"A picture is worth a thousand words " Guenterberg said. "Especially in this case."
She added people don't understand that, when it comes to losing weight, only 20 percent depends on exercise. Rather, 80 percent of it is what you eat. She said combining those two things by including images of stick figures exercising on food packaging would really bring the message home for the average person.
The average person. That's another aspect of the labeling I question. I recently wrote an article on Fitbit accuracy in which Nick Rozek, workplace wellness coordinator at the Greater Green Bay YMCA downtown, said the device's calorie counter will likely never be entirely accurate because each person's body burns calories at a different rate.
"For instance, me burning off a 300 calorie candy bar is a whole lot different than my grandma doing it," Rozek said. "People who have more muscle are going to burn energy quicker to maintain muscle mass and body temperature."
Guenterberg said the biggest limitation of the labels is the numbers are based on a 170-pound man. However, she said, society works on averages and these proposed new labels would still be a turning point for dieting and overall nutrition literacy.
My biggest concern, however, is the labels would only be put on "junk" food. There are certainly healthy foods out there that are in fact high in calories and fats. Excluding healthy foods from this labeling would be ignoring the importance of eating foods in moderation — healthy or junk.
One reader said he thinks the labels wouldn't encourage a healthy lifestyle at all. Instead, he thinks they would feed into people's insecurities and create a negative attitude toward all food regardless of which foods carry the label.
So, would people actually pay attention to these labels and rise to the occasion? Maybe. Only time will tell. All I know is when and if these labels ever become official, I will probably have just as much exercise time in my grocery cart as I did before.