Time to Snub the Clubs?
Volume discount vs. voluminous waistline? If you buy more, you'll probably eat more!
The prospect of getting extra bang for their food buck has more people perusing
warehouse-style club stores like Costco and Sam’s Club. But the urge to stockpile large amounts of food in the house may lead to calorie overload.
A paper in the Journal of Marketing Research found that club store shoppers buy about 3,500 more calories a month—mostly nonperishable packaged foods—than they would if they didn’t shop at these outlets. And there is a good chance people who lug home extra calories are likely to eat many of them, which could have waistline repercussions. To resist the urge for a jumbo-sized container of chocolate-covered almonds, people should bring along a detailed shopping list and use club stores mainly for lower-calorie, healthier staples, like bags of frozen berries and whole grains.
Matthew Kadey, MS, RD
Matthew Kadey, MS, RD, is a James Beard Award–winning food journalist, dietitian and author of the cookbook Rocket Fuel: Power-Packed Food for Sport + Adventure (VeloPress 2016). He has written for dozens of magazines, including Runner’s World, Men’s Health, Shape, Men’s Fitness and Muscle and Fitness.
