Calories Are NOT Bad

I saw this from NPR’s Facebook account this morning:

“ Would you think twice about that 20-ounce soda if you were informed that it would take 5 miles of walking — or 50 minutes of running — to burn it off?”

With a link to it’s story, Reality Check: To Burn Off a Soda, You’ll Have to Run 50 Minutes  

There are many reasons this is idiotic reporting. Mostly because this is promoting anorexic thinking.

Source

Reality check: the average 30 year old woman burns 115 calories every waking hour, doing absolutely nothing.

Your body needs fuel. Food is not just something you eat to stop hunger pains, and then every morsel that passes through your mouth must be logged against how long it will take to run/walk/vomit off. Eating should not be an antagonistic activity. Striving to pass the smallest number of calories through your gut is not a goal, it's a disease.

Labeling Coke with a sticker that essentially reads “Warning: this food contains calories”--- is a horrible idea. Soda is not a bad choice because it contains 250 calories. Soda is a bad choice because those calories are unaccompanied by fiber, protein, vitamins, or fat. 

A coke and an avocado have roughly the same number of calories. That does not make the avocado junk food, nor should you pysch yourself up for a cardio workout every time you eat one. And while a rice cake may only have 35 calories, it is not a health food. Rice cakes provide nothing but simple sugars.

You can only eat so much in a day and your body requires certain amino acids, lipids, and other compounds that can only be obtained through eating. Soda contains none of those things. Thus you should usually spend your limited intake of food on those things that provide your body with necessary nutrients.  

I’d much prefer a sticker on Coke that reads: “Warning: these calories are purely for entertainment. NOT FOR MINDLESS CONSUMPTION”

*Steps down from soap box*
Stephanie