An Apple a Day May Not Keep The Doctor Away

As people eat more and more produce, they are also eating more and more of everything else—ultimately increasing the obesity epidemic

Written by Karli Moats | Healthy-Mag.com 

For years we have heard about the positives of fruit and vegetables.  “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” or the “one more a day pledge” where people pledge to eat at least one more fruit or vegetable daily. But is eating more produce really helping?

According to the obesity rates throughout the world, nothing is really helping. Even those with the highest degree of education are also becoming those with the highest degree of BMI’s. Colorado, who prides itself in being the healthiest state, is climbing the obesity charts, and the discrepancy in obesity and income is slowly narrowing its gap. It seems that no one is no longer safe from the plague of obesity.

A new paper recently published by RAND health economist Roland Sturm and co-author Ruopeng—a professor of health policy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—begins to dissect the real reasons our waistbands continue to expand.

Sturm stated, “The consumption of fruits and vegetables has increased during the obesity epidemic.”

So, what is the real problem here? Fruits and veggies are high in nutrients, and are healthy choices, but what is not healthy is eating 10 of them per day.  The study states, “Preventing obesity is not about eating more food, regardless of how many nutrients it provides, but consuming less energy or expending more.”

The real deal with weight loss is in the numbers.  You have to turn out more calories than you turn in.  According the work of Sturm and An, people today are consuming 30 pounds more of vegetables and 25 pounds more of fruit per year than they did in 1970.  However it doesn’t stop with just produce. The average adult ate a diet around 2,100 calories per day in 1970, that’s 400 less than the 2,500 we average today.

This new study confirms that, in the end, it’s about moderation.  No matter what we eat, we need to be more conscious of the “how much.” Obesity is making everything bigger and bigger, and the only way to combat it is to make our plates a little bit smaller.