Healthy eating Americans feel overweight

Deloitte recently surveyed nearly 4,000 consumers online about healthy eating, eating out, in-store food options, consumer responsibility and food purchasing.

"Survey respondents mostly claim they try to eat healthily, read nutritional labels and that they would like to see more healthy food menus, but given that 57 percent of the respondents also said they were overweight, it appears to be a struggle for most of us,"​ said Tara Weiner, national managing partner of Deloitte's Consumer Business Practice. "The survey shows that the food industry has a lot of different issues to deal with, many of which directly contradict one another, making this such a challenging time for the industry."​

When asked to define healthy, 52 percent of respondents said it meant eating in moderation, and 51 percent said it meant eating more grains and fruits and less fats and sweets. Interestingly, only about one in six said healthy meant eating low-carbohydrate or low-fat foods.

However, nearly 60 percent of all respondents would like to see more low-calorie, high-fiber or low-carbohydrate food products on the shelves. Sixty-four per cent of overweight respondents wanted to see more low-calorie foods, but 52 percent of non-overweight consumers also expressed an interest in them.

This information, though, may not be as simple as it seems for the food industry to interpret.

"History suggests the industry's responses to eating trends have not always been financially rewarding,"​ said Weiner. "Fad diets over the years have created volatility in earnings for those companies that have responded to the changes in demand."​

But the survey suggested that consumers welcome the industry's support to attain a balanced diet. Although 54 percent of respondents thought the individual should take sole responsibility for healthy eating, 45 percent said it should be shared between the individual and the corporation.

"The survey results point out the difficulties and inherent contradictions in many of our attempts to eat nutritional, safe foods,"​ said Weiner. "Despite our stated interests, many of us often eat what is most convenient rather than what is most healthy. Food companies may want to factor into their planning the reality that consumers are pretty evenly split on the issue of eating healthily, which makes it difficult to manage product lines."​

With the total cost of obesity to US society being estimated to be as high as $300 billion, food companies and food service providers are going to have to heed consumer and government concerns and work to stop these costs spiralling even further out of control.