When we talk about our diet, we would all tend to minimize what we eat per day… An attitude noted both in thin people and in those who are stronger.
- In order not to gain weight, while giving enough energy to the body, the daily calorie balance of an individual must be close to zero.
- This means that the body must expend all the calories supplied to it by eating.
It is estimated that daily caloric needs vary between 1,800 and 2,000 kcal for a woman and 2,100 to 2,700 kcal for a man. But are we telling the truth if we are asked what we eat each day? Absolutely not believe researchers who have just published a study on the subject in the journal American Journal of Human Biology.
900 more calories per day
And the extent of the lie would be substantial: whether thin or rounder, even obese people, all would minimize their daily caloric intake by 900 calories per day! “These results contradict previous research showing that obesity was associated with a greater degree of under-reporting.”, say the authors. Indeed, the added value of this study is to show that it is not only overweight people who lie but indeed everyone!
More energy expended in obese people
At the same time, the authors also observed that for equal activity, obese people spent more calories. For example, vacuuming burned more calories in them than in the leaner participants.
“Larger bodies need more energy at every hour of the day and especially during physical activity, as shifting weight is hard workexplain the authors. The discrepancy between reported intake and actual expenditure was greater in obese adults than in normal-weight adults…because they expended significantly more energy each day than thinner ones.”
No more error between what people report and actually eat
To erase these differences and therefore arrive at accurate results, the authors used a mathematical model to correct for the difference in body size between obese participants and those who were thin.
“When we took into account the different body sizes and different energy needs they have, there was no difference in the amount of under-reporting of their food intake”say the researchers.
400 calories burned per day
To achieve these results, the scientists studied the eating behavior of 221 adults of different weights. The average age was 54 years old. They had to keep a food diary and then the researchers checked how much energy they were consuming. via various examinations such as urine tests.
Thus, obese people reported eating 1,200 calories per day and thin people 800 calories…. But the former spent 13% more energy per day, or 400 calories, which brought them back to 800 like thin people… And therefore the same lie! Indeed, the researchers estimated that all the participants actually ingested an average of 1800 calories per day, that is to say 900 more than they claimed. Thus, regardless of corpulence, the authors concluded that the difference between the declarative and the real in terms of calories is always 900 to add… the equivalent of three hamburgers!
