CDC study finds significant increases in American's consumption of calories, carbohydrates and fats

Food & Drink Weekly, Feb 16, 2004

A new study has found that over 30 years, American's eating habits now include many more calories, carbohydrates and fats are eaten daily. From 1971 to 2000, the study found, women increased their caloric intake by 22 percent, men by 7 percent. Much of the change was found to be due to an increase in the amount of carbohydrates we have been eating. The findings may reinforce the current trend among those sometimes known as "carb-avoids," of reducing or even eliminating foods like breads and pasta.

The study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and reported in its current Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, found that in 1971, women ate 1,542 calories on average, compared with today's 1,877--the equivalent of an additional chocolate chip cookie every day. Men went from 2,450 calories a day to 2,618, slightly more than a 12- ounce Pepsi. Those numbers dwarf the government's recommendations of 1,600 calories a day for women and 2,200 for men.

And while the percentage of calories Americans get from fat, especially saturated fats, has decreased, the numbers might be deceiving. The actual amount of fat eaten on a daily basis has gone up. It just makes up a smaller percentage of the total caloric pie now that we are eating so many more carbs. Cookies, pasta, soda and other carbohydrates appear to be mostly to blame. Among women, carbs jumped from about 45 percent of the daily caloric intake to almost 52 percent. For men, they grew from 42 percent to 49.

"This just confirms that Americans need to be more focused on a total calorie decrease," said Jacqueline Wright, an epidemiologist at the CDC and the author of the study. Wright said it was unclear whether the study would influence a revision of the Agriculture Department's familiar food pyramid, which currently emphasizes a diet rich in breads and grains.

According to the National Institutes of Health, two-thirds of Americans are overweight and one-third are obese. Between 1971 and 2000, adult obesity rates more than doubled - from 14.5 percent in 1971 to 30.9 percent in 2000 - the results, many experts say, of an obsession with oversized portions.

According to the CDC report, most of the surge in caloric intake occurred in two periods, from 1976 to 1980 and from 1988 to 1994. An earlier report by Dr. Lisa Young of New York University tied that increase to decisions by national restaurant chains to expand portions of foods like French fries and hamburgers. Serving sizes, Young found, became two to five times bigger in those years, and cookbooks joined the trend by increasing the portion sizes in recipes.

Part of the problem, some experts say, may stem from the traditional dietary advice to steer clear of fatty foods. That advice, they say, helped set off an explosion of "fat-free" carbohydrate-laden foods that Americans mistakenly believed they could eat with few consequences.