ECU Ruling: Rethink for calorie eating levels & Daily calorie intake “too low”, bbc.co.uk

Complaint
These items concerned a draft report by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition which proposed to raise the Recommended Average Requirement (of calories) by up to 16%. A visitor to the pages complained that the items misleadingly presented this information as meaning that the average adult could safely consume a further 400 calories per day.

Outcome
The Recommended Average Requirement (RAR) represents the calories which are expended in energy by the average adult in the average day. An increase in the RAR would licence consumption of 400 extra calories only if, on average, people had been restricting their consumption to the level previously recommended, which is not the case. While the items included a number of significant caveats, these did not suffice to offset the effect of the statement that "A 16% increase would mean that adults could safely consume an extra 400 calories a day, equivalent to an average sized cheeseburger", which was misleading.  Upheld

Further action
The finding refers to a text article and a video report. The wording of the article has been amended to make clear that any potential increase in calorie intake would apply only to those already eating at recommended levels. The relevant phrase has been removed from the video. A link to the ECU finding will be added to both pages when it is available on the BBC website.