Confusing news for dieters this week, after the recommended daily calorie intake was increased by up to 16%. The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition announced in a report that they believe the current calorie count given to guide people on healthy diets was too low and have suggested it should be bumped up by about 400 calories, the equivalent to a cheeseburger or two packs of crisps.
The report was leaked to The Times newspaper and The Grocer magazine.
Previously it was recommended that women eat 2,000 calories a day and men 2,500 but in their draft report, the SACN said that nutrition experts had underestimated the levels of physical activity in Britain and therefore misjudged their advice on energy intake. The existing guidelines were created in 1991.
The report is not yet official and is due to go through a 14-week consultation period before any final recommendations are made. If it is given the go-ahead, some foods which are marked as red or orange under the ‘traffic light’ system, meaning they take up a significant part of a person’s daily calorie intake, could be downgraded to receive a healthier rating.
However the report has been criticised, with the National Obesity Forum warning that it was a ‘dangerous assumption’ that adults could consume more calories each day. It is also thought that the Government and the Food Standards Agency will not be pleased, as it could be seen to send out a dangerous message when obesity levels are rising across Britain.
The criticism seems fair enough. There are so many mixed messages about dieting and weight loss coming from every quarter and lowering the calorie count will only serve to make the situation more confusing. With obesity being the burgeoning medical time bomb that it is, the last message that we should be giving out is that people should be eating more. It may well be that physical activity is higher than originally estimated but we are not overweight as a nation because people are eating too little. This is quite a ridiculous proposal and should be dismissed out of hand given what we know about the nation's eating habits as a whole!