subject: Must Do The Math- 'only 100 Calories' [print this page] In the ongoing 'battle of the bulge' era, company after company has profited from those who have bought into their sales pitch for one product or another.
A creative marketing strategy of late is the number of food products released, packaged to contain only 100 calories - that's only '100 measly calories' to allow you to feel self-righteous even while indulging. But have you ever taken time to do the math?
What math you may ask? Well before we talk about that, let's review a few of the basics of weight gain and weight loss.
The amount of energy contained within food is reported in a unit of measure called the 'calorie'. Many governments require food manufacturers to include nutritional labels on their products reporting the energy value of the food. This allows you to know how many calories a serving of that food would contribute to your intake for the day.
With respect to calories, scientific studies have found that one pound of weight is equated to 3500 calories. Therefore if you want to gain one pound you need to take in an extra 3500 calories or create a deficit of 3500 to lose one.
So now back to the question about whether you've done the math. In case you haven't, let's do it together.
If you take the delightful 'only 100 calories' snack companies are enticing you to consume and multiply those 100 calories by 365 (i.e., the number of days in the year, assuming that because the snack contains only 100 calories, people will feel free to eat one every day) you get 36500 calories.
Now if you divide those 36500 calories consumed in the year by 3500, the number of calories in one pound, you get 10.43. So what you ask?
Well, if you change nothing else in your daily routine for the year, except for adding that 100 calorie snack into your diet, at the end of the year you will have gained 10.43 pounds. Now how appealing does the snack look?
Calorie burning charts report that a 155 pound person only burns just under 250 calories when walking for one hour at a 3.0 mph pace. That means they would basically need to go for a half-hour walk just to walk off the calories consumed in their snack that probably took them only moments to ingest.
Now the purpose of this article is not to say you should never consume the 'only 100 calories' snack, but rather to insure you are aware that what companies are selling to add to their 'bottom' line could just be adding to yours as well!
by: Ryan Round
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