Over the last few years, both people and businesses have become more aware of and open about nutritional information. People often check food labels before buying products and cafes include calorie counts on their menus.
But it seems that the UK’s Royal Society of Public Health wants to go one step further and has put forth the suggestion that food packaging could show how many minutes of exercise one would have to do to burn off the calories contained in the food.
For example, a packet of crisps is said to translate as either half an hour of walking or a 16-minute run.
The Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Public Health, Shirley Cramer, wrote on the BBC: “This is not meant to scare people, or to create a society of obsessives.
“But instead, it is meant to show to the public very clearly just how active we need to be if we are to consume the diets we do and not put on weight. Or how we might need to readjust our diets to match our inactive lives.”
She explained that some companies in the UK are already using “activity-equivalent calories” labelling. (We’re not sure if any are doing it in Ireland.)
Considering the global obesity epidemic, this suggestion does make sense but surely every person is different when it comes to both storing and burning calories.
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