Does low-fat on the label make you fat ?

Is it possible nowadays that having something that is supposedly low-fat can indeed make you fat, some researchers at Cornell University found out that this just may be the case, they noticed that people will tend to eat more calories when they reach for the so-called low-fat type of snacks, which was more noticeable if the person or persons was overweight already.

The study found out that because these particular type of snacks were low-fat ones, that people eating them were far more likely to eat more, the people were not considering the amount of calories contained within the snack itself low-fat doesn't necessarily mean low in calories.

What was documented from the study was the lower fat type of snacks had lower levels of fat 59%, but only had 15% less calories, because the snacks were deemed as being healthy the participants who took place in the study stocked up very well with them, and naturally ate a lot more of these snacks, people who's weight was normal also ate a lot of these snacks but not as much as the overweight group.

The people who conducted the study concluded that the people, when reading the labels thought because it said low-fat, then they would be able to eat more and it would be okay to do so, but as we can see this clearly isn't the case at all, myself I can actually remember once watching a programme about food labelling which said low-fat on the label, but it was noted that the product contained lots of sugar which, if there is too much in the body it will get turned into fat eventually.

All low-fat labels do is encourage us to eat more of the wrong types of foods in a nutshell, it's just clever marketing, the best thing to do to avoid this sort of trap is make sure you read the label and look at the calorie content of said product and compare it with a high fat version of the same product and compare calories.

It's probably far easier to prepare your own food so then you don't have to think about labels at all, myself I tend to look at two things mainly as regards labels
sugar and fat are the two main things I look at and lastly calories.

The best thing to do really if you feel the urge to snack is make some healthy alternatives and put them in the fridge, in a airtight container so if necessary you can take it with you wherever you go work wherever, make healthy little salads from fruit or vegetables, and then you won't be tempted to buy snacks you don't need.

Via http://abcnews.go.com