Jogging Is Scarier Than Calorie Counting?!

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If you’ve eaten in a major fast food chain (especially in New York), you are probably familiar with calorie counts being posted next to ads of Big Macs and greasy, delicious fries. The idea is to discourage you from wanting to eat too many high calorie/ high-fat foods.

According to a research study done in Maryland, there’s a more effective way-threaten to make people run! They found teenagers turned away from soda MORE when they were told drinking it would require 50 minutes of jogging to burn the calories. What really made my jaw drop was their logic:

Researchers monitored adolescents at four corner stores in West Baltimore, where low-income residents are at especially high risk for obesity partially tied to increased soda consumption. For six months last year, they posted one of three different signs near beverage cases in each store, converting a bottle of soda to a calorie count (250 calories), a percentage daily value (10%), or the amount of jogging time it would take to burn off the drink (approximately 50 minutes). The researchers intentionally used jogging, rather than more enjoyable physical activities such as basketball or dancing, because of their belief that unfavorable information is more persuasive to consumers.

(emphasis mine)

So going for a run is such an arduous and unfavorable concept, people will skip soda to avoid it! I have a few problems with this logic. One, not everyone burns calories uniformly. 50 minutes of running for one person could be 6 miles, and for another, it could be 4. It’s hard to quantify if someone would really burn off a soda with a 50-minute run. Two, this type of logic can lead to overeating very easily. “I ran this morning, so I can have a bagel with cream cheese” becomes a very slippery slope. You can overeat and gain weight while being an active runner, and it’s not a ‘run this far/get to eat this much’ equation.

Also, I admit, I am a bit miffed. That many people are so horrified at running that it discouraged them from touching soda? It is kind of funny and kind of sad all at once. But it is important to remember that this applied to the target demographic in the study (teenagers) and not the general population, where sign-ups for running and triathlon races are increasing tremendously each year. Movement and ditching poor nutrition go hand in hand for health, so go for a run, but don’t reward yourself with a Coke afterward! (And especially not Mountain Dew!)

Via Forbes

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Zek
Zek has been a gadget fiend for a long time, going back to their first PDA (a Palm M100). They quickly went from researching what PDA to buy to following tech news closely and keeping up with the latest and greatest stuff. They love writing about ebooks because they combine their two favorite activities; reading anything and everything, and talking about fun new tech toys. What could be better?

3 Comments on "Jogging Is Scarier Than Calorie Counting?!"

  1. Look at it this way – even in sports, what do coaches use as ‘punishment’?  Either laps or sprints: running.

    For those of us who love running, it is frustrating to see it done this way – I understand that they are trying to put things in context so that folks will understand the impact of those calories, but as you say with race enrollments soaring, isn’t it time to remove the stigma?

    As a fun aside, someone I was traveling with on business this week had just joined a new local gym with his wife (New Years thing), and on the first day (January 2nd) they had pizzas lined up for folks to eat!  Without any guidance or calorie info or ANYTHING!  So people would work out for an hour, feel great, have a couple of slices and effectively GAIN weight!  And his wife had told him they had bagels and cream cheese and muffins nearly every day as well!

    Finally – I totally agree with the slippery slope logic!  A recent study showed that diet soda consumption tended to have a negative weight impact … because it made people feel OK about eating more – sorta the old ‘pizza & diet coke cancel each other out’ mentality.

  2. Ugh, pizza and bagels at the gym…my old gym had huge, sugary smoothies they encouraged you to buy after a workout. Once I asked for nutritional info and they couldn’t even locate it. Sad.
    By the way, the T shirt image is a real shirt…you know you want one!

  3. Worth noting is Dan’s article from last week about the exact same thing … no wonder I thought I had been hearing a lot about this lately! 

    http://www.geardiary.com/2011/12/30/planet-fitness-has-surefire-way-to-keep-you-coming-back/

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