(Photo: Marco Verch/Flickr)
For years, I thought the calorie-count of any food was really important. Now, I realized calories shouldn't be the only factor I take into consideration.
Every time I pick up a snack, I see the large bolded number on the back. Popular culture such as TV shows, ads, and social media influenced me to think that fewer calories means healthier foods.
But sometimes foods with ingredients I prefer have more calories than foods with less healthy ingredients I learned to avoid. Now I use reliable sources online and on social media to research how calories can affect my health.
I consider how my body actually feels after eating different foods, but it wasn’t easy to get to that point.
Counting calories doesn’t guarantee that a diet is healthy for someone’s body. For me, it did quite the opposite. My attention shifted from what and how much I felt like eating to how I thought I was supposed to eat.
People should learn what works for their bodies, not to count numbers on labels.