Opinion-in-brief: Calorie-counting has never worked – why should it now?
Boris Johnson wants to preside over a healthy nation, fair enough. But he’s buying into a diet culture that reached its zenith in the mid 2010s with the prevalence of MyFitnessPal and other calorie-tracker apps.
Guilt-tripping people about the calories in their Sunday roast might work in the short-term by convincing people to resist extra potatoes for a few weeks, but there is limited evidence it will actually curb Britain’s growing obesity problem.
Afterall, the nutrition facts panel, which includes calories, first started appearing in supermarkets in 1994, after the FDA mandated it on US foods.
But that didn’t stop people reaching for a KitKat. It fails the most basic test of achieving a policy objective – but it also comes with significant risks for those suffering from eating disorders, one of the most lethal mental illnesses.
In other words, the notion of “calories in, calories out,” is so 2010. Let’s leave it there.