How to make the right choices to preserve your nutritional balance and that of your loved ones? After years of battle with the agri-food industry, many countries have adopted – or are planning to do so, like France – labeling systems providing nutritional information on products.
But this information is useless if consumers do not know the number of calories needed per day, and they ignore the 2,000 daily calorie benchmark on which these labels are based, find researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (USA). “It is therefore not enough to display the number of calories on the menus,” said the head of the study, Dr. Lawrence J. Cheskin.
So, in an attempt to find solutions, reports the site of the regional daily La Dépêche, the researchers brought together 246 adults divided into three groups. The team of scientists presented them with “the caloric content of fast-food foods without giving the participants any indication of the recommended daily calorie consumption”, explains the journalist. More than one in two participants (58%) did not know the 2,000 calorie/day recommendations.
Every Monday and for four weeks, the first two groups received food information, one by text message, the other by email. No information was communicated to the last group.
As a result, participants in the “sms group” were twice as likely to assimilate the recommendations as the others.
For the authors of the study, knowing your “calorie budget” encourages you to consume and prepare healthier meals. Text messages on smartphones would then act as a reminder.