WASHINGTON — Only one of every eight adult Americans knows how many calories he should consume in a day, while almost two-thirds recently changed eating habits, mainly to lose weight, according to an industry-backed survey.
“There is confusion on all sides of the calorie equation,” said Wendy Reinhardt Kapsak, a director with the Washington-based International Food Information Council Foundation, which released the survey Wednesday. “They need references for those numbers.”
Diets and calorie counts are part of Michelle Obama’s push for companies to make healthier products. The first lady in May won pledges from companies including General Mills, Kraft and PepsiCo to reduce calories by changing recipes or cutting portion sizes.
Losing weight is the No. 1 reason why Americans change their diets, with 65 percent of dieters citing it as a factor, the council’s survey showed.
Fifty-seven percent said they considered themselves overweight, with 8 percent saying they were obese. In reality, 33 percent were overweight and 34 percent obese, according to the data. Meanwhile, 77 percent were not meeting the Health and Human Services Department’s physical-activity guidelines, based on how much and what type of exercise they do.
The survey of 1,024 consumers older than 18, conducted April 30 to May 17 by Cogent Research, has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
