Why Are We Fat? The Visibility of Food and the Invisibility of Calories

More than any other time in our evolutionary history, much of the world’s population is living in environments of food abundance in which it is impossible to perceive or impute the caloric density of the foods we eat.  Visual food cues are everywhere in obesogenic environments and these catalyze reflexive cognitive, physiological and behavioral responses leading to a desire to eat and food intake.  Over the last 2 decades, there has been an increasing norm for larger portion sizes which are not detected by visceral feedback and size alone is a poor measure of the caloric density of food.  Many modernizing trends have distanced people from food production, preservation, packaging and preparation so that traditional cues involving these activities by which energy density, or some proxy, might be inferred are no longer experienced.  Furthermore, food technology and marketing have led to a wide range of deceptions regarding the caloric density of food by reducing fiber and water content and adding excessive amounts of fat and sugar.  We cannot trust either vision or taste to detect caloric content.  Diet beverages use non-caloric sweeteners but fat-free pastries may have nearly the same caloric content as the standard preparation.  Increasing the visibility of calories is one approach to decreasing food intake and curbing the obesity pandemic.  One suggestion is to use the universal traffic color code with red for high, yellow for medium and green for low caloric densities. The audience will be invited to participate in an activity assessing the caloric density of foods.