Posted Jan 14, 2011
A poll released this week by Consumer Reports indicates nine out of 10 Americans believe their diet is healthy, but a local dietitian and nutrition therapist says many of those people are probably fudging.
“We’ve lost the ability to trust our own human nature,” said Pam Kelle.
The national poll, which sampled 1,234 adults (with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points), revealed 52.6 percent of Americans described their diet as “somewhat” healthy, 31.5 percent described it as “very” healthy and 5.6 percent described it as “extremely” healthy.
Kelle said those who say they want to change their diet often fall prey to diet myths. They’ll trust someone else’s word instead of doing what they instinctively know is right, she said.
“I see it every day,” she said.
While most Americans responding to the poll described themselves as healthy, just 28 percent limit their sweets and sugars every day, 26 percent limit their fat intake daily, 79 percent rarely or never count calories and 60 percent rarely or never weigh themselves.
“Americans have a tendency to give themselves high marks for healthy eating, but … we found that their definition of healthy eating was somewhat questionable,” Nancy Metcalf, senior program editor of Consumer Reports Health, said in the report. “Americans seem to rely instead on their own internal compasses to slim their girths.”
Lea Reagan, a nutritionist with Memorial Health System, said the problem is portion control. Even when they keep a food diary, she said, people underestimate what they eat by 30 percent.
She said many Americans are willing to carry more weight.
“We’re not aware of the cutoffs [concerning obesity] or what they represent,” she said. “We’ve adapted.”
The Consumer Reports poll indicated only 30 percent of Americans eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily. According to the Department of Agriculture, adults should have three to five servings of vegetables and two to five servings of fruit every day.
People get in a rut with vegetables and prepare the same things — green beans, corn, lettuce (salad) and peas — over and over again, said Kelle.
The most popular vegetables, according to the Consumer Reports poll (ranked by the percentage of people who eat them at least once a week), are lettuce or salad greens (78 percent), tomatoes (71 percent), carrots (63 percent), potatoes (61 percent), broccoli (57 percent), corn (56 percent) and peppers (50 percent).
Those listed as least favorite (ranked by percentage of people who rarely eat them), are parsnips (87 percent), Swiss chard (86 percent), bok choy (82 percent), turnips and rutabagas (80 percent), artichokes (78 percent), eggplant (78 percent) and okra (77 percent).
Kelle said what is available locally and what we’re familiar with contribute to the vegetables we choose.
However, she said, “we’re supposed to get a variety of fruits and vegetables. You have to experiment.”
While Kelle said people “can get nutrients without eating a parsnip,” but vegetables that should be on most Americans’ lists are spinach, broccoli (or other dark, leafy greens), orange sweet potatoes, red tomatoes and red peppers for their vitamin C content.
“If more consumers take a gamble on eating different types,” Kelle said, “they may be pleasantly surprised at what they find.”
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Copyright © 2011, Chattanooga Times Free Press, Tenn.
