Image by: Just Simply Health

The obesity epidemic that’s increasing exponentially in America has sparked interest in an array of programs to establish initiatives for Americans to become serious about their health, especially in terms of their weight. It has also led to a variety of commercials that are currently airing, to explain the negative effects that unhealthy junk foods can wreak on our bodies. It singles out many food brands as contributing to people gaining weight by consuming their products. These commercials graphically describe the effects by displaying visuals of heart disease or other health issues in order to frighten viewers into being more health conscious. While many doctors will tell you to eliminate junk food from your diet completely, that is somewhat impossible, we all get a sweet tooth sometimes and it can be difficult to turn down your favorite junk food weakness. So instead it can be better to be more physically active by way of exercising extensively in order to burn off the calories that were put on by way of delicious yet fattening food.

Now, in an effort to be more honest with consumers, companies are highly considering adding new labeling to processed food products that will clearly indicate exercise equivalents that can be done to burn off the calorie intake of that specific food item. This will enable consumers to understand the severity of the amount of calories they are ingesting on the daily basis.

Image by: Nancy Ripton

It will help them see how much junk food that they are eating because an apple naturally would not have a warning label but a bag of potato chips would. While the potato chips essentially have no nutritional value, the apple, despite it still having a sugar and calorie index, has vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals that will consequently benefit the body to have the energy to run efficiently. The new labeling that the potato chips would have would describe exercises to do to counteract the calories of it, for example; the label could possibly read that it would take 35 minutes of walking to burn away the calories. However this can still be a tad bit misleading because in order to know how to burn off a specific amount of calories, you have to calculate that person’s body mass index. So a person who weighs 100 pounds will have to walk or run twice as long as a 200 pound person.

Overall though it would be an encouragement for all consumers to be more attentive to labels and will hopefully help them make better educated choices when purchasing food for themselves or their families as in theory it will help you to consider buying foods with a lower calorie index in terms of sodium and sugar content which would overall be healthier. Many consumers have said labeling is difficult to understand and it would be more beneficial to make the labeling more consumer friendly. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is currently considering redesigning labels on packaged foods to highlight the ingredients that you should avoid or that are healthy in the food item.