(Nicola Davis/ The Guardian) — Labelling food and drinks with how much walking or running is needed to burn them off could help tackle the obesity crisis, researchers say.
While all packaged food must display certain nutritional information, such as calorie content, there is limited evidence that the approach changes what people buy or eat. Meanwhile, waistlines continue to expand.
A new study backs another approach to labelling: displaying small symbols showing how much physical activity is needed to compensate for consuming the item.
A fizzy drink containing 138 calories, for example, could be accompanied by a small symbol of a person showing it would take 26 minutes of walking or 13 minutes of running to burn off.
The team say the approach puts calories in context and may help people to avoid overeating, or spur them to move about more in a bid to burn off the energy they have consumed. They also suggest it might encourage food producers to make products with less calories. (…)