Americans are finally eating less
After rising for decades, calorie consumption has declined in recent years as public attitudes have shifted. Calories consumed daily by the typical American adult, which peaked around 2003, are in the midst of their first sustained decline since federal statistics began to track the subject, more than 40 years ago. The number of calories that the average American child takes in daily has fallen by at least 9 percent. In the most striking shift, the amount of full-calorie soda drunk by the average American has dropped 25 percent since the late 1990s. As calorie consumption has declined, obesity rates appear to have stopped rising for adults and school-aged children and have come down for the youngest children, suggesting the calorie reductions are making a difference. The encouraging data does not mean an end to the obesity epidemic as more than a third of American adults are still considered obese, but the changes in eating habits suggest that what once seemed an inexorable decline in health may finally be changing course. The eating changes have been the most substantial in households with children, with the anti-obesity public health campaigns focussing on one subject more than any other: beverages. Beverage companies have reacted by marketing diet drinks and investing heavily in new products, including iced teas and flavoured water.
“This was like a freight train going downhill without brakes,” Kelly Brownell, dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, said. “Anything slowing it down is good.”
