Years of warnings by health officials and grim news on the bathroom scale appear to finally be having an impact on the nation's eating habits. While there is no sign the high level of obesity has fallen, Americans say they are consuming fewer calories and cutting back on fast food, cholesterol and fat.
Working-age adults consumed an average of 118 fewer calories a day in the 2009-10 period than four years earlier, according to a study released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Americans also reported eating more home-cooked meals with their families and fewer in restaurants—though the economy played a role—and reading nutritional labels on food at grocery stores more often.
he latest findings add to growing evidence that suggests the nation's eating habits may be taking a more healthful turn. Other studies also have found that caloric intake has declined in recent years.
Nutrition and public health experts caution that the tide hasn't turned on the problem of obesity and the health risks that come with it, such as diabetes. But they say a range of trends may be contributing to modest yet promising shifts in behavior, including greater public awareness and pressure on food manufacturers and the restaurant industry to produce more healthful offerings.
"These are not huge shifts, but they are positive ones," said Kelly Brownell, an obesity expert and dean of Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy. "We still have huge problems with obesity—it's just a smaller degree of terrible."
More than one-third—36%—of U.S. adults were obese in 2009-10, up from an estimated 15% in 1980, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the rate remained level in 2012 compared with the prior year in every state except Arkansas, according to an August 2013 study by two nonprofit groups. And the CDC found the same month that certain childhood obesity rates were declining in many states.
Some food experts said that the improvement in diets might be more attributable to cash-strapped Americans eating at home more often during the recession than to better food choices.
"The good news is we're getting healthier, the bad news is, we're poorer," said Harry Balzer, a food analyst with the market research firm NPD Group, who noted that median U.S. household income remained flat in 2012 from 2011.
The USDA report said that about 20% of the improvements in diets of those surveyed could be traced to Americans cutting back on fast food or restaurant meals.
The decline appeared to be more influenced by "an increase in consumer focus on nutrition in selecting foods, changes in the quality of foods available and greater nutritional information available to consumers," said Jessica Todd, a USDA economist who wrote the report.
(Source: online.wsj.com)
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