Every time you purchase anything to eat or drink (at least in the United States), you can expect to see a nice little chart on the label that tells you all about the nutrition you will get from the item. Whether it is good for you or bad, you can make educated decisions based on what is supposed to be accurate information.

For many people, the most important line on that label is going to be the number of calories. This makes sense given that it is at the top of the label. In addition to showing approximately how many calories a serving of a given item has, the labels say that the information is based on a 2000 calorie recommended diet.

But where did that number come from?

Surely a team of researchers and nutritionists came up with 2000 calories as the ideal average number for optimal health, right?

Sadly, no. Not even close.

Author and podcaster Aubrey Gordon talked about this on an episode of the podcast Maintenance Phase, saying:

“Two-thousand calories a day was not based on nutritional or medical best practices. It was not based on recommendations from scientists; it was not based on research into any optimal diet, or weight management, or any of that stuff. It was based on Americans’ self-reported calorie intakes through USDA surveys.”

That’s right, the USDA basically asked a bunch of people to estimate how many calories they ate per day, and then used that number to determine what to use as the standard.

This is a horrible way to make this type of decision for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that people are terrible at estimating how many calories they are actually eating.

In the 2012 book, Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics, food scientists Marion Nestle and Malden Nesheim wrote:

“In the early 1980s [USDA] scientists observed glaring inconsistencies in the results of the agency’s national surveys of dietary intake. They noticed that the number of calories reported as consumed by men and women in 1977-78 was lower than the number reported in 1965.

Not only that, but respondents to the 1977-78 survey reported intakes 300 to 400 calories below the amounts needed to maintain their weights.

Even more suspicious, during the thirteen-year period from 1965 to 1978 the average heights and weights of survey participants had increased, meaning that they should have been eating more calories, not fewer.”

Even if the number of calories reported was accurate, it still doesn’t come out to be 2000 per day for everyone. That number would be 2350, which is what the FDA wanted to use.

They got a lot of pushback from politicians and the public, however, arguing that this number was hard to remember and it wasn’t accurate for everyone anyway. The FDA caved and just put out the 2000 per day number, even though that is not really what is recommended for anyone.

So, how many calories do you really need?

Not surprisingly, there is nothing even close to a one size fits all answer to this. A large man who works in a physically demanding job may require 4000+ calories per day to maintain a healthy weight. A petite woman living a sedentary lifestyle might need 1000.

The bottom line when it comes to calories is to ignore the FDAs supposed recommendation and work with a nutritionist or medical professional to figure out exactly how many calories you need.

And more importantly, understand that while calorie count is absolutely essential, getting those calories in the form of foods that have the right levels of protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals is key to overall health.

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