While updating some writing on eating disorders, I realized that I had some contradictory data. In a section on obesity, I used some WebMD data on the number of calories in some restaurant meals. Among the cited meals was the Cheesecake Factory’s chicken and biscuit meal, at an incredible 2,500 calories. A few paragraphs down, in a discussion on bulimia nervosa, I had a reference to the “average” binge session of a patient with bulimia as 1,500 calories [1]. Oops. Something weird is clearly afoot. If 1,500 calories at one sitting constitutes a binge, nearly everyone eating in today’s restaurants must be bingeing away.
On further examination, I realized that my citation for the 1,500 calorie binge dated back to 1986, before our current epidemic of obesity got underway. In 1986, fewer than 12% of American adults had a BMI of 30 or more, but today’s figure is nearly three times that—34%. Perhaps one of the many changes involved with the obesity epidemic is our notion of what constitutes “too much” on the plate. Several media reports echo the figure 10,000 to 20,000 calories at a sitting, and attribute this figure to the Mayo Clinic, but I was unable to find these numbers on the Mayo site. It’s possible that the Mayo staff decided not to quantify a binge.
All You Used to Need to Qualify for a Binge
To help unwary diners from inadvertently bingeing, the Center for Science in the Public Interest is attempting to pass laws that will label menus in fast food and chain restaurants clearly calorie information. They suggest that most people are unlikely to know that a slice of carrot cake at the Cheesecake Factory is 1,560 calories (our old binge standard), an order of cheese fries with ranch dressing is 3,010 calories, a large theatre popcorn with “butter” topping is 1,600 calories, and a cafe mocha and a pastry from Starbucks is over 1,000 calories.
1. Rosen, J. C., Leitenberg, H., Fisher, C., & Khazam, C. (1986). Binge-eating episodes in bulimia nervosa: The amount and type of food consumed. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 5, 255–257.
2 Comments
kjchin · April 11, 2010 at 4:27 pm
I definitely like how you used the example of the Cheesecake Factory, because I have looked at the calories of all the assortments of cheesecake that they offer and saw that they were 1000’s of calories! That is basically half of your recommended daily intake of calories! It is crazy! It’s also crazy how just eating one meal out at a restaurant, like Cheesecake Factory, you can exceed your recommended daily intake of calories easily: including the bread, the butter, the meal itself, and cheesecake. No wonder our country has an obesity problem.
KatelynMedina · April 27, 2010 at 8:49 pm
I truly find it amazing how calorie dense some items on today’s restaurant menu total. With these fatty meals, it is no wonder that America is facing an obesity dilemna. After reading about the calories present in the carrot cake, I wanted to find out other strikingly high calorie dense foods in America.
I came upon this site:
http://eatthis.menshealth.com/slideshow/20-worst-restaurant-foods-america
I found it hard to believe that a single milkshake can rack up to over 2,000 Calories! wow!
Comments are closed.