Myth Debunked: Fruit Makes You Fat
The myth that fruit makes you fat is so common you can even hear it from workers in health food stores. Fruit is the original health food - think “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, so it’s hard to imagine how the idea that fruit will make you fat began circulating. People are shunning the healthiest food out of fear that it will make them fat.
Current guidelines recommend eating 4 servings of fruits a day. 4 servings a day is the minimum amount recommended and studies show that more is better (1, 2). Studies have even shown that eating up to 20 servings of fruit a day is beneficial and had no adverse effects (3).
How many Americans actually meet the bare minimum of 4 servings of fruits a day? The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) states that “Overall, 13.1% of respondents met fruit intake recommendations.(4)” The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics reports that 69% of adults are overweight and 35.1% of adults are obese (5).
Only a mere 1 in 8 people eat the minimum amount of recommended servings of fruit yet 69% of people are overweight. The majority of Americans do not eat enough fruit and the majority of Americans are overweight, therefore, one can see that it is not fruit making Americans fat. If Americans started eating more fruit, at least the minimum 4 servings, we would see the percentage of overweight people drop. According to the studies cited above, if Americans started eating 7 servings of fruit a day we would see the percentage of overweight people drop drastically.
The reason fruit doesn’t make you fat is because the average fruit contains less than 10% of calories from fat. High fat fruits like avocados and olives are the exceptions. On the other hand oils are 100% fat, butter is 99% fat, cheddar cheese is 74% fat, bacon is 67% fat, and milk is 47% fat.
Why would a food like fruit that contains very little fat make you more fat than a food that is mostly fat? The answer is that it won’t. Fruit does not make you fat. If you were to examine the diet of overweight friends and family you will most likely find that they eat little, if any fruit. That is what the CDC reported in their study above. Americans eat very little fruit and are very overweight.
People gain weight when they consistently consume more calories than they burn. This is most easily done with fatty foods because 1 gram of fat contains more than twice as many calories as 1 gram of carbohydrates. It would be very difficult to become overweight as a result of eating too much fruit.
1) http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/31/study-eat-7-servings-of-fruit-veggies-daily/
2) http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/vegetables-and-fruits/
3) http://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-much-fruit-is-too-much/
4) http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6426a1.htm
5) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm
Current guidelines recommend eating 4 servings of fruits a day. 4 servings a day is the minimum amount recommended and studies show that more is better (1, 2). Studies have even shown that eating up to 20 servings of fruit a day is beneficial and had no adverse effects (3).
How many Americans actually meet the bare minimum of 4 servings of fruits a day? The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) states that “Overall, 13.1% of respondents met fruit intake recommendations.(4)” The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics reports that 69% of adults are overweight and 35.1% of adults are obese (5).
Only a mere 1 in 8 people eat the minimum amount of recommended servings of fruit yet 69% of people are overweight. The majority of Americans do not eat enough fruit and the majority of Americans are overweight, therefore, one can see that it is not fruit making Americans fat. If Americans started eating more fruit, at least the minimum 4 servings, we would see the percentage of overweight people drop. According to the studies cited above, if Americans started eating 7 servings of fruit a day we would see the percentage of overweight people drop drastically.
The reason fruit doesn’t make you fat is because the average fruit contains less than 10% of calories from fat. High fat fruits like avocados and olives are the exceptions. On the other hand oils are 100% fat, butter is 99% fat, cheddar cheese is 74% fat, bacon is 67% fat, and milk is 47% fat.
Why would a food like fruit that contains very little fat make you more fat than a food that is mostly fat? The answer is that it won’t. Fruit does not make you fat. If you were to examine the diet of overweight friends and family you will most likely find that they eat little, if any fruit. That is what the CDC reported in their study above. Americans eat very little fruit and are very overweight.
People gain weight when they consistently consume more calories than they burn. This is most easily done with fatty foods because 1 gram of fat contains more than twice as many calories as 1 gram of carbohydrates. It would be very difficult to become overweight as a result of eating too much fruit.
1) http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/31/study-eat-7-servings-of-fruit-veggies-daily/
2) http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/vegetables-and-fruits/
3) http://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-much-fruit-is-too-much/
4) http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6426a1.htm
5) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm
