Having asked 4,000 adults to track their calorie consumption over four days, the survey discovered that men typically eat 1,000 extra calories than they realise each day, while women consume an extra 800 – citing the fact that “people do not like to ‘be taken for slobs’” as one reason for disillusionment.
According to The Telegraph, the research also found that “the more people eat and overweight consumers were, the less reliable their estimates are.”
Tam Fry from the National Obesity Forum told the publication: “People lie and I am not surprised that they do when it comes to food. They wish not to be taken for slobs, even though they may be just that.”
As obesity levels continue to rise in the UK – Britain now the “fattest country in Western Europe” – Public Health England is due to publish new guidance on calorie counting next month (March), which advises that lunches and dinners should be limited to 600 calories, and breakfast to 400.
However, Fry warned that it’s an “absolutely ridiculous” attempt to solve the problem and is unrealistic.
As well as changes in diet, increasing portion sizes and eating out more often all blamed for rising obesity levels, experts have also seen a “shift” to ready meals, junk foods and snacks and fallen activity levels.
Professor John Wass, a consultant endocrinologist and spokesman for the Obesity Health Alliance, said: “The technology used in this study to measure calorie intake is watertight, and the findings confirm what we already know. One of the main contributing factors in the obesity epidemic facing this country is people consuming too many calories.
“The fact that people appear to be underestimating their calorie intake is not surprising. This isn’t necessarily about being in denial, but demonstrates the difficulty in calculating the nutritional content of food.”
Chief nutritionist at PHE, Dr Alison Tedstone, added: “Underreporting of intakes has always been a feature of all diet surveys. Some people forget what they’ve consumed and some change what they record knowing they are part of a survey.
“There’s no way to get rid of underreporting, but the steps we take to minimise it makes the National Diet and Nutrition Survey the most robust data on the population’s diet.”