The World According to Chuck

Linda Shiue in Salon takes on the FDA and serving size. I don’t know why I feel compelled to continue this discussion; I’m starting to bore myself.

But, even though she makes excellent points (what difference does it make if the FDA adjusts serving sizes to reflect what Americans really eat at a sitting if the problem is that Americans eat too much?), a crucial, simple and basic arithmetic sort of model still seems to be missing, at least from my cheap seat.

For example, in the original article on serving size the writer noted that it’s fairly easy for someone not paying attention to consume 1000 calories’ worth of, say, potato chips. It is, too, but then he went on to say that, at the same time, the average American should be eating about 2000 calories a day.

Maybe so, but that’s a point of view, is all. Let’s try an energy point of view instead and assume what the writer meant is that an “average” American needs 2000 calories to maintain his or her weight, not gain, not lose. OK. Using any number of calculators, or even the nearest one, and wandering away from “average” for the moment, assuming an unremarkable level of daily activity (not particularly athletic but not overly sedentary), 2000 calories would comfortably maintain your weight if you weighed 140 pounds.

And you may. But you ain’t average. Not if you’re an American woman, and certainly not if you’re an American man. In fact, last I read, the average American man weighs around 185. Since he’s also around 5′10, that means the average American man is (wait for it) statistically overweight. Makes my head hurt, thinking about “average.”

So, eat 2000 calories a day if you weigh 140 pounds. Or if you want to, because, eventually, you will. It’s sort of a rule.

This is what drives me crazy when I read articles like this. I don’t lose sleep over it, but it seems fairly clear to me that we, as a nation and apparently as a world (coming soon!), are getting bigger because there are lots and lots of calories lying around, and we don’t know how much to eat.

That’s aside from the question of how much we should eat, not to maintain our current weights but, y’know. To be healthy and not get diabetes and live good lives. I can’t quite figure out how super serving sizes helps that at all, but as I said. Bored now.