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Fast-food eaters underestimate calories
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) — Next time you go out for that big burger, bucket of fries and super-sized soda, you better bring along your calculator just to be safe.
Most people, no matter how large or small they are, tend to underestimate how many calories are in fast-food meals — a big problem as portion sizes have ballooned, a new study has found.
People make more accurate guesses when determining the calories in smaller meals, according to the results of the study published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
“This is not an issue of knowledge, of motivational biases that people want to lie (about what they eat). It’s just ingrained perceptual bias that we can’t control,” said Pierre Chandon, a co-author of the study and assistant professor of marketing at the international business school INSEAD in Fontainebleau near Paris, France.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/09/06/diet.portion.ap/index.html