Restaurant portion sizes are huge—about 2 to 3 times larger than the food labels list as a serving. Even well-trained nutrition professionals tend to underestimate the amount of fat and calories in restaurant foods.

Food is abundant in the United States. There are 3,800 calories available in the food supply for each person each day. However, the average American (over the age of 4) needs about 2,350 calories per day.

Food advertisements promote mostly foods high in calories, fat, or sugar. Only 2% of food advertising is for fruits, vegetables, grains, and beans, combined.

Food advertisements subtly (and not so subtly) encourage overeating and eating when you aren’t hungry. For example, one ad from Quaker advises parents to feed their children chewy granola bars to keep them quiet. The text reads, “Kids talking too much? Give ’em a Chewy. Chewy stops the chatter.” Other familiar lines brought to you by the food industry include, “don’t just stand there—eat something,” and “once you pop...you can’t stop.”

Modern conveniences like remote controls, elevators, car washes, washing machines, leaf blowers, and drive-through windows at fast-food restaurants all mean less physical activity. The Dallas Morning News tallied up the number of calories a person could burn if he replaced several “convenient” activities, such as driving through a “drive-through” window, with their more active counterparts, such as walking into the store. Together, they added up to 8,800 calories worth of missed physical activity opportunities each month, or the amount of activity needed to burn off 2.5 pounds of fat.¹

Americans are not getting the basic nutrition education they need to maintain a healthy diet and healthy weight. Funding for nutrition education pales in comparison to what the food industry spends advertising unhealthy foods. Federal funding to promote nutrition and physical activity also lags far behind funding to prevent tobacco use.

(in millions) Fast Foods McDonald’s** $1,042 Burger King $427 Pizza Hut $147 Candy, Cakes, and Snack Foods Hershey candies $84 M & Ms candies $68 Betty Crocker foods $65 Nutrition Education Programs CDC’s Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity (2002) $27 5 A Day3 (2001) $3.6

* Figures are for 1997 unless otherwise noted.
** Includes advertising and promotion.

Physical education (PE) in schools, which gives kids a chance to be physically active and teaches them the skills they need for a lifetime of physical activity, is declining. Only a quarter of high school students participate in daily PE, down from 42% in 1991. In fact, half of high school students are not enrolled in PE at all.

Given all the forces working against Americans’ attempts to maintain a healthy diet and weight, the government needs to do more than just cross its fingers and hope that the obesity problem goes away. To start, Congress and the Administration should increase the budget of the CDC’s Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity. They also should increase funding for the 5 A Day program, to more strongly promote fruit and vegetable intake to all Americans.

Education must be supported by policy changes that make it easier for people to eat better and be active. No one policy will solve the problem. However, a combination of policy approaches would help.

Learn more about nutrition and physical activity policy options.