A Cornell research group studied how women get their recipes and its relationship to weight gain, and found that watching food television or using social media correlated to an increase in Body Mass Index (BMI).[1] Never fear – obtaining recipes from print, dietitians, online (such as the RealFoodForever blog), or in-person sources was not significantly associated with BMI. Whew.
One of the study’s authors, professor Pope, says food TV shows lead people to eat less healthily due to social norming.[2] In other words they believe it’s normal to prepare indulgent foods as often as they see them on TV. I’m surprised the weight gain came from people actually cooking the foods – I thought it was going to be that they were sitting on the couch all the time watching TV and eating snacks.
In summary Pope said, “Restaurant quality meals really shouldn’t be eaten every day.” Good thing, because I don’t know where these women are finding the time to prepare restaurant quality meals. Although, the age group studied was 20-35 and it doesn’t specify the percentage who had full-time jobs and kids that need to be shuttled all over the place. The last time I regularly watched a food TV show was back when Emeril was on, but I know Jamie Oliver is known for using simple, sustainable, local ingredients. Who are some other real food chefs out there?
Between common sense, occasional leftovers, salads, soups, and portion control, no one needs to worry about increasing their BMI eating real food. And now that we’re back to daylight savings time, we can work on our gardens instead of watching TV. If you’re in a warmer climate you can start moving your seedlings outdoors – hurray!
[1] “Viewers vs. Doers. The relationship between watching food television and BMI,” L Pope, L Latimer, and B Wansink, Science Direct, March 2015.
[2] “The problem with watching too many cooking shows,” by Roberto Ferdman, The Washington Post, March 18, 2015.
