MONDAY, Oct 31, 2022 (HealthDay News) - A new study suggests that people trying to eat healthy may not be the best judges of how well they actually eat.
Researchers found that only 1 in 4 people could accurately rate how healthy they were eating when asked to rate their diet after a year of trying to lose weight.
Worse still, only 1 in 10 people realized how much their eating habits had changed that year, with the majority believing they made more progress than they actually did.
“There is no good match between what they consider the quality of their diet and what we have calculated as the quality of their diet. They also overestimate the amount of change in diet quality, "said lead researcher. Jessica Cheng. PhD student in epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health. T. Chan in Boston.
People also read ...
"So it was very important here that there was some difference between how healthy they thought their diet was and how much they thought they had changed their diet among the people who were trying to diet," added Chen.
Cheng will present the findings this weekend at the American Heart Association Annual Meeting in Chicago and Practice. Results presented at medical meetings are considered preliminary for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
About half of Americans try to lose weight every year, the researchers note on a footnote.
But previous research has shown that people overestimate their commitment to healthy eating habits, such as eating fruits and vegetables, choosing whole grains, choosing lean protein, and replacing fat-free or low-fat dairy products with whole-grain ones. Chen said.
To get an idea of how far people can go, the researchers evaluated the diets of 116 adults between the ages of 35 and 58 in the Pittsburgh area who were trying to lose weight.
Incompatibility between perception and reality
Participants met face-to-face with a nutritionist to discuss their diet and then tracked what they ate and drank every day for a year on the Fitbit app.
At the beginning, middle and end of the one-year study, participants were asked to complete a 24-hour food questionnaire, essentially a self-assessment of how they ate based on their personal memories. Participants also rated the quality of their starter and final meals.
The researchers used the participants' actual nutrition data and memories to calculate two separate Healthy Eating Index (HEI) scores, one based on the amount of food they actually ate and the other based on people's perceptions of what they ate.
IAL is a measure of how well a dietary model meets US dietary guidelines for Americans. Scores range from 0 to 100, with a higher score indicating a healthier diet.
The researchers found that only 27 percent of people had self-esteem that matched their current college score at the end of the study.
"About a quarter of the samples matched well, which means 75 percent of them matched one way or another," said Cheng. "Much of this conflict comes from people overestimating how good their diet is."
The calculated mean university GPA was 67.6 and the actual mean GPA was 56.4.
"They think they're 10 to 15 points higher than the Healthy Eating Index recommended," says Chen.
To put these findings into perspective, Chen said, the federal Healthy People 2020 initiative set a goal of improving American diets to a college average of 74.
The researchers asked the participants to rate how much their college grades improved over a year on the diet.
The results were even worse: only 13% of people correctly rated that they had improved their usual diet.
Diet trackers can help
"If you look at how much they differed in the healthy eating index during the study, it was between 1 and 2 points, which isn't much on a 100-point scale," said Cheng. "But if you ask them, they think they change the quality of their diet by about 18-19 points on average."
Deepika Laddu, president of the American Heart Association's Council on Lifestyle Change to Improvement Health Factors, said the findings are "critical" to understanding the differences between expected and actual health behaviors.
"If we don't understand the fundamental concepts and goals of healthy eating, this can, as we have seen in these findings, lead to a re-evaluation and continued consumption of foods that are considered healthy," said LaDue. , Associate Professor, College of Applied Health Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago. "Consequently, this can lead to weight gain, not to mention the increased frustration of not achieving personal weight loss goals."
Cheng believes that people have a general idea of what healthy eating is and that better learning and assessment tools are needed to really understand how well they are eating.
After all, wearable trackers help people accurately determine the number of steps they take per day, night sleep quality, and average heart rate. Using an accurate diet tracker can play a similar role.
"Diet tips are confusing for people and it's hard for people, but I think they really know the basics," said Cheng. “People know that fruits and vegetables are good for them and there isn't much controversy about it.
"So my advice would be to step back and think about your basics," Chen said. “Do you eat fruit and vegetables? Can I add my fruit and vegetables? If possible, consider measurements. Sit down and tell me how many vegetables I ate on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and can I add them?
The federal government's MyPlate program is a good place to start if people want a relatively simple guide to healthy eating, Chen added.
"It gives you a good visual idea of what you should eat," says Chen.
Learn more about the USDA's MyPlate.
Sources: Jessica Cheng, PhD, PhD, Epidemiology, Harvard Chan School of Public Health, Boston; Deepika Ladu, PhD, Associate Professor, College of Applied Health Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago; American Heart Association Scientific Sessions Summary and Press Release, October 31, 2022