Fitness foods has the potential to make you fat

A new study suggest not to trust ‘fitness foods’ in order to lose weight as it may do more harm than good. The study was published in the Journal of Marketing Research.

According to a study performed by the Pennsylvania State University researchers, it was revealed that, the 'fitness' branding encourages consumers to eat more of those foods and to exercise less, potentially undermining their efforts to lose or control their weight.

For the study, the researchers investigated the effects of fitness-branded food in 'restrained eaters'. All the participants were given trail-mix style snacks marked either 'fitness' or 'trail mix' with a picture of running shoes which was added to the packaging to make the 'fitness' snack appear even healthier. For those who were specifically trying to watch their weight, the effect of labelling was significant.

Overall, the researchers observed that it caused them to eat far more of the snack marked 'Fitness'. They also observed that the snackers who ate the ‘fitness’ brand also chose to expend less energy during the exercise phase of experiment.

By Lizitha