According to an American study, dieters have an erroneous perception of their diet.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the number of obese adults is over 650 million and 1.9 billion people are overweight.
- Today, 69% of French people are interested in the impact of their diet on their health, according to the Ministry of Health.
Eating more fruits, vegetables and salads when you are on a diet would be less healthy and balanced than you think… this is the conclusion of a preliminary study presented at the 2022 Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association which took place from November 5 to 7 in Chicago.
The majority of dieters overestimate the quality of their diet
Indeed, according to the researchers, there is a gap between the vision that we can have of an effective diet and that of researchers and health professionals.
Researchers assessed the diets of 116 adults, ages 35 to 58, from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area who were trying to lose weight. Study participants discussed their diets with a dietitian, then they noted everything they ate and drank each day for a year on a tracking app, the study authors reported. They also weighed themselves daily and wore a device to track their physical activity.
The researchers used the HEI (Healthy Eating Index) index, which assesses the extent to which a diet pattern conforms to the guideline of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans of the US government. The score on this index is a function of the frequency of consumption of foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole and refined cereals, meat and seafood, sodium, fats and sugars. It goes from 0 to 100, or even more if the diet is very healthy.
Participants had to self-assess their own progress towards a healthier diet at the end of the study, by subtracting their final score from the initial score. The researchers did the same operation and significant differences appeared between the two perceptions: at the end of the study, only 1 out of 4 participants had a good relationship between their perceived diet score and that assessed by the researchers.
Dieting can be counterproductive
This significant discrepancy is not without consequence: “Overestimating the perception of the quality of the food consumed could lead to weight gain, frustrations related to not achieving personal weight loss goals or a lower likelihood of adopting healthier eating habits“said Deepika Laddu, assistant professor in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and chair of the American Heart Association’s Council on Lifestyle Behavioral Change for Improving Health Factors.
The researchers hope that the results of this study will allow dieters to develop healthier, more sustainable and above all more realistic eating habits and health professionals to better support them.