When you pick up your food at the store and are trying to decide if it’s healthy or if it has any ingredients that you can’t have, the labeling can be confusing. Food labels have changed over the years and they are much more informative then ever before. Our personal trainers believe that it is beneficial to maintain a healthy relationship between food and exercise. When those two things become negatively related then it can lead to very unhealthy habits.
In a recent article from BBC World News they outline some new food labels that are being used in Europe. The food labels equate how much exercise you would need to do in order to burn off the calories after eating that particular food. This information might make it more simple and clear for people to understand instead of what is currently on food labels in North America but it can be a very dangerous approach for many people with eating disorders. Also, it could begin a very unhealthy relationship between food and exercise. Below is the response given by our Registered Dietician Susan Watson from A Little Nutrition.
“I’m not sure if changing a nutrition label will fix the problem. I think when we prescribe anything it could trigger people. People need to learn that there is a difference between recommendation and guidelines that are for a population, verses individual prescription. I think nutrition labels tell us a lot about food, but if people take it literally and obsess about it, there is nothing we can change to fix that. I think if people are able to drop the food police voice In there head, get out of diet culture, make peace with food and how they fuel their body, it will address these issues. ” — Susan Watson "A Little Nutrition" book a consultation now