People understand that fast food is not the healthiest but they don’t necessarily understand how fattening it can be. The British Medical Journal recently reported that most of us are way off when knowing how many calories we consume at chain fast food restaurants.
“At least two thirds of all participants underestimated the calorie content of their meals, with about a quarter underestimating the calorie content by at least 500 calories,” Harvard’s Jason Block and colleagues wrote in the British Medical Journal.
The study was conducted in the cities of Boston, Providence, Springfield, MA, and Hartford. The survey showed that participants on average predicted about 175 calories less than they actually ate. The biggest underestimation occurred at Subway, where adults showed the largest differential in estimating caloric content.