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How much food does that exercise earn you? (2015-07-28)

In a small study, volunteers who were shown chocolate and sports drinks after an exercise workout could not correctly guess how much would be an equal reward for the calories they had just burned.
Surprisingly, they chose amounts that were much too small either underestimating how many calories they had burned or overestimating how many were in the foods.

Following periods of physical activity, it is not uncommon for exercisers to increase their energy intake as a reward deemed earned.
Consumers’ awareness of the energy within food and expended from exercise has previously been found to be limited.

Therefore, the aim was to investigate whether habitual exercisers (50 adults and 49 children from 5 sports clubs) were able to conceptualise the energy expenditure (EE), following 1 h of their regular sports training, into a quantifiable amount of perceived energy compensation (PEC) in the form of food (chocolate) or drink (sports drink).

Mean percentage accuracy for the PEC against EE matched <30% (±29%), a significant underestimation irrespective of sex or sport.
Percentage accuracy failed to significantly correlate to age.

These findings indicate a necessity to improve nutrition education surrounding the energy costs of exercise relative to the energy contained within foods/drinks for both adults and children.

See also
I have to walk how many miles to burn off this soda?

For more information
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition - Nature
J L Varley-Campbell, M S Moore, R E Ewen and C A Williams
Perceived energy compensation following various sports: an age and sex comparison. Preliminary observations
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