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There are many myths surrounding what you should and shouldn’t eat.

One of the most common myths is that fat makes you fat.

Although there’s an element of truth to this myth – it is easier for the body to turn excess fat into body fat – including fat in your diet is not the sole cause of extra body fat.

Because the body require healthy fats to function properly, restricting your fat intake too much can cause health problems. And, if you find yourself carrying a little too much body fat, chances are you’re not eating too much fat but too many calories altogether.

Total calories verses type of energy source
It’s commonly believed that excess body fat is caused by eating too much fat. While this is partly true, the amount of calories you eat throughout the day is more likely to be the reason for additional body fat.

It’s a simple equation of energy intake versus expenditure. Any surplus energy will be stored whether it’s fat, carbohydrate or protein.

Each of us requires a certain number of calories a day in order to maintain our weight. Eat more calories than you need and you’ll start to gain weight.

Although some people argue that the source of these excess calories is to blame for additional body fat, at the end of the day, your body simply stores excess calories as body fat, regardless of whether they are eaten as fat, carbohydrate or protein.

Your body likes to do things as efficiently as possible. One of the reasons the ‘fat into fat’ myth is popular is that it’s much easier to convert fat to body fat.  Storing fat as body fat, carbohydrate as glycogen, and protein as muscle is much easier on your body than converting carbohydrate or protein to body fat.

That’s not to say your body won’t convert carbohydrate or protein to fat (especially if there is an excess of either in your diet). It just requires more effort to do so.

Excess carbohydrates and protein can be turned into fat
Along with the ‘fat makes you fat’ myth, another common belief is that too many carbohydrates (especially late at night) will be turned into fat.

Once again, there’s some truth to this. Excessive amounts of carbohydrates can be converted to fat. However, the process of converting either protein or carbohydrate into fat requires a lot more effort.

For example, to turn excess carbohydrate into fat, you’ll have to eat 500g more than you actually need.

Generally, it’s much easier to store carbohydrates as glycogen in your muscles. But if you eat too much you will definitely find yourself gaining weight in body fat.

Although it’s easy to blame this weight gain on too much fat or carbohydrates, we should remember that too much of any energy source will equal an increase in daily calories and, in turn, weight.

Written by Andrew Talati

With the food industry’s fear of the imminent legislation looming over advertising to children, their self regulated code seems to be a bit of a joke.

Recently there have been two breaches of the self-imposed code, with the advertising standards Bureau’s complaint regarding a recent Nestle advertisement featuring children interacting with their products.

The food industries guidelines stated that they would not advertise to children under 12 for any food products or high in salt, sugar and fat.
Nestle way later acknowledged that smarties did not constitute a product that fell within the parameters established under their own guidelines.

A similar situation is happening with regards to food labeling, with many big corporate food companies adopt thing and RDI label across the top or bottom of the packaging. While it may be construed as a good initiative by the food industry, it is a sneaky way of manipulating dietary information to receive a positive outcome, that their products are low in sugar, fat and salt.

In the spirit of political speak, they turned the incident around saying that the code was working as advertisements which breached the code were withdrawn rather than these ads should never have been broadcast in the first place. This begs the question if these ads were not brought to the attention of the advertising standards Bureau, whether the Food and Grocery Council would have voluntarily moved to have these ads withdrawn.

The writing is on the wall for other big conglomerates, as the fast food industry has also the precautionary steps to introduce their own guidelines with regards advertising to children. This is been adopted by seven of the big players in fast food such as McDonald’s, Hungry Jacks, KFC and Pizza Hut.

With childhood obesity reaching epidemic proportions, there really needs to be accountability and guidelines more in keeping with marketing unhealthy to food to children.

Also interesting is the exemption of websites from the code, if you look at the Freddo Frog’s website, I’II let you decide whether this is in breach of the code.