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美国康奈尔大学研究人员最近研究发现，吃所谓“低脂”快餐食品只会导致人们更加放纵饮食。与吃常规的食物相比，这样摄取的卡路里更多。

研究人员称，当食物标签写着“低脂”食品时，就暗示人们仍然可以增加卡路里摄入，这类食品尤其吸引超重人士的眼球。低脂肪的标签可能误导人们把“低脂”等于“低卡路里”，给了人们可以吃得更多的理由。

该研究中的低脂肪快餐卡路里仅比常规食物低15%。但有低脂肪标签的食物足以给消费者产生“所有低脂肪的食物都健康”的错觉，使得超重者对这样的快餐趋之若骛。就连体重正常者也常常被受其“诱惑”。

两组受试者实验结果对比研究发现，这些看似无辜的低脂肪快餐实际上把更多的卡路里带到饮食当中。这就提示，低脂肪标签的食品可使人精神放松，因此吃得更多，并且他们对于自己吃得过量不再感到内疚。

过去几十年里，美国人一直视脂肪为体重和健康的大敌。这种担心并非没有道理，科学家在20世纪60年代就发现，红肉和奶制品中的饱和脂肪会增加人体内的胆固醇含量，导致心血管疾病。于是美农业部颁布的“食物指南金字塔”中，就把脂肪、烹饪油等“束之高阁”，列为“节制摄入食品”。精明的食品生产商马上跟进，纷纷打出“低脂牌”，似乎只要贴上“低脂肪”的标签，就是健康食品了。

但“低脂就是健康”这一理论并没有经得住时间的考验。近20年，美国人食谱中含脂食品一直在减少，体内胆固醇含量在降低，吸烟也越来越少，但心脏病的发病率并没有像预期的那样降低。尤其肥胖症从20世纪80年代初开始流行，Ⅱ型糖尿病也在同一时期迅速蔓延，它们的发展与“低脂即健康”理论的普及几乎同步，也提示二者之间存在着某种联系。看起来我们现在生活在无脂肪、无碳酸、无糖产品的世界里， 但仍有越来越多的大人和孩子超重或是患上肥胖症。

不要贪恋低脂食品。研究人员建议，标签应写明更准确的卡路里数，这样才可能阻止人们吃得太多、引导大众健康饮食。此外，消费者应选择自然低脂肪的快餐，如新鲜的水果和蔬菜；而不是低脂肪、加工过的快餐（如饼干、薯片）。还有，当你有吃快餐欲望时不妨喝杯水。

Don't pig out on "low fat" snacks

Medical Research News
Published: Tuesday, 12-Dec-2006

According to researchers at Cornell University, in the U.S., eating so-called 'low fat,' versions of snack foods only serves to encourage people to over-indulge.

The result is they end up eating more calories than if they had eaten the regular versions.

The researchers say when the label says 'low fat,' beware as the calories can still add up and this applies in particular to those people who are overweight.

As experts say we appear to be living in a world of fat-free, carb-free and sugar-free products, but an increasing number of both adults and children are overweight or obese.

They believe low-fat labels can trick people into eating more than regular labels and give people an excuse to eat more.

They say people underestimate the amount of calories in low-fat snacks and overestimate how much of these snacks they think they can safely eat and mistakenly believe that "low-fat" equals "low-calorie."

The low-fat snacks used in the study were only a little lower in calories than the regular versions, and though they had 59 percent less fat, they only contained 15 percent fewer calories per serving.

The low-fat label creates the illusion that everything low-fat is also healthy and this led overweight participants in the study to load up on such snacks, consuming an average of 90 more calories when a snack had "low-fat" on the label which equated to a 50 percent increase.

Those of normal weight in the study were also enticed by the "low-fat tag but they did not over-indulge to such an extent, consuming 30 more calories per snacking session, on average.

But for both groups, the results show that these seemingly innocent low-fat snacks actually contributed more calories to the diet because more were eaten.

The Cornell researchers suggest that low-fat-labeled foods give people the mental permission to eat more and they feel less guilty about how much they have eaten.

The researchers say labels should depict larger, more realistic serving sizes, which might deter people from eating too much by giving them a more accurate calorie count.

Experts have a number of suggestions for snacking and they include:-

keeping track of calories as well as fat,

building in portion control by buying prepackaged, 100-calorie snacks,

or pack your own, opting for naturally low-fat snacks, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, rather than low-fat, processed snacks such as cookies, crackers and chips and

drinking a glass of water when the urge to snack appears.

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=21233

编辑：蓝色幻想