Nina In New York: Exercise Equivalent Calorie Counts Are The Wave Of The Future For Creative Procrastinators

A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
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By Nina Pajak

It's been a long time now that we've all been living in the calorie-conscious world. Even these days, as I am pregnant and have a semi-free pass (knowing, of course, that nothing in this life is truly free) to gorge myself every so often, it's difficult to really dive in when I can plainly see that my "little indulgence" is 1300 calories.

But for some people, nutrition information is still just a series of meaningless numbers. If you don't know how many calories you do or should eat in a day, what does 1300 signify, anyway? Is that a lot or a little? Is it a lot for that particular item? Or is that how much fried egg-bacon-cheeseburgers always are, in which case maybe that's okay for you because you've been on the fried egg-bacon-cheeseburger diet for many successful years?

Some researchers in the UK feel they may have the answer. After having found that prominent nutritional information seems to have done little to nothing in the way of changing consumer behavior, they determined that foods featuring "activity equivalent calorie labels" may be the answer. "For example," says the BMJ press release, "the calories in a can of fizzy drink take a person of average age and weight about 26 minutes to walk off." This sort of perspective should theoretically prove simple to understand and process for even the least nutritionally-educated citizen. And everyone knows that an effective diet is nothing without the exercise component when it comes to shedding real weight, right? Linking the two makes absolute sense, and brings about a more tangible element to the whole, amorphous issue of calorie content.

This, of course, assumes that people who previously didn't care about what they ate will suddenly worry about working off the calories in a sleeve of Oreos. And that those same people will then either make smarter choices to avoid any physical activity, or that they will honestly attempt to satisfy that exercise requirement and not, say, bank it for some future day of atonement. Like, I would never eat one of those fried egg-bacon-cheeseburgers and make a mental note to spend two hours jogging on Friday to compensate. Or, Friday's sort of busy actually. Maybe Sunday. Although we've got that thing, and plus I was planning on eating a whole pizza on Saturday night which will make running pretty unpleasant the next day. Let's say Tuesday. Yeah. I'll gladly pay on Tuesday for a hamburger today.

Hmmm, that sounds awfully familiar. Oh well, no matter. I'll just mark it down on the calendar. Boy, this week is really filling up.

Nina Pajak is a writer living with her husband, daughter and dog in Queens. Connect with Nina on Twitter!