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When Calories Go Down, Weight Goes Up?

30 Mar 2024 · 1 min

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Ask AI Mark and another speaker examine a confusing trend in national nutrition data: reported calorie intake dropped from 2000 to today while obesity rates climbed. They question whether the food industry's claim that sugar consumption fell holds up under scrutiny.

Yes, we're eating more.
Calories per person.
But if you look at the data from 2000, and this is from the NHANES data, the National Health Nutrition Examination Survey, which is a national survey of, you know, tens and tens hundred thousand people. And what they found was from 2000 until now, calorie counts have gone down as obesity rates have gone up, which is kind of a paradox, it's hard to explain with the energy balance hypothesis. Right.
Well, in fact, the food industry actually argues that sugar consumption has gone down as obesity rates have gone up, up in that same 20 year period. So they say, well, it can't be the calories and it can't be the sugar. Well, wait a second.
It depends how you define sugar.
There are a lot of.
Cane sugar. Yeah, maybe, but that's some other reasons.
There are a lot of whys and wherefores to that.