• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, January 17, 2014

We are consuming about 78 fewer calories a day overall, saturated fat consumption has decreased from 11.3% of total calories to 10.6%, fiber intake has increased from 16.1 grams a day to 17.3 and we’re paying more attention to health claims and Nutrition Facts Panels, a government study of 10,000 working Americans’ eating habits from 2005 to 2010 shows.

But don’t break out the Champagne quite yet. Not only will a 4.1-ounce glass of bubbly deliver exactly 78 calories to your digestive system (requiring 22 minutes of walking or 6 minutes of swimming to burn off), according to CalorieKing.com calculations, the improvement is just a drop in our oversized buckets.

“These are not huge shifts, but they are positive ones,” Kelly Brownell, an obesity expert and dean of Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, tells the Wall Street Journal’s Melinda Beck and Amy Schatz about the report issued yesterday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. “We still have huge problems with obesity — it's just a smaller degree of terrible.”

“This is a step in the right direction, but it's not nearly enough,” Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, tells Beck and Schatz, adding that most people need to eliminate at least 350 calories a day to lose weight. 

But there are also positive signs regarding consumers’ belief that they can take their heath into their own hands, so to speak, by making better choices at retail.

“Compared with 2007, the percentage of working-age adults who believed they have the ability to change their body weight increased by three percentage points in 2010,” according to the release for the report. “During the same time period, the report shows, there was little change in the importance that price played when making choices at the grocery store, but working-age adults placed increased importance on nutrition when choosing items to purchase.”

Several stories cited sources who found a silver lining in the cloud of the recession (unless you were a restaurant owner, in which case the cloud was a cumulonimbus). The report found that the panelists “ingested 127 fewer calories from food prepared outside the home, a decrease of almost 5%,” Aarian Marshall reports in Agri-Pulse.

“Harry Balzer, chief industry analyst for the NPD Group, a market research firm that tracks eating trends, says during this time period, many people experienced a drop in income, and people lower their food costs by using restaurants less because restaurant meals cost three times more than meals made at home,” writes Nanci Hellmich in USA Today. 

Why is that so good?

“A healthy family doesn't just eat nutritious foods, they also eat together around the table,” Chicago registered dietician Dawn Jackson Blatner tells Hellmich. “We have more control over ingredient quality and portions when we cook at home. More home-cooked meals is one trend that I'd like to see go viral.”

Jessica Todd, a research economist with the USDA's Economic Research Service, used the “silver lining” analogy herself in pointing out that more people started preparing food at home from 2007 to 2009, Daphney Shoshi reports on News Tonight Africa. 

“Lead researcher Jessica Todd was optimistic,” writes Agri-Pulse’s Marshall, that the trend will continue even as the economy improves and people eat out more frequently. Or at least not pessimistic.

“Because consumers are focusing on nutrition information more, I don't think that (food) quality will rebound or become worse,” she said, citing new restaurant labeling guidelines as signs of permanent progress. “That is my hypothesis.”

The USDA report says that the “USDA is focused on strategies that empower families to make healthy food choices,” citing in particular:

• The MyPlate symbol and resources at ChooseMyPlate;

• SuperTracker, a free online planning and tracking tool;

• The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 which has improved nutrition standards at schools, as well as the recently announced Smart Snacks in Schools;

•  The expanded eligibility for $4 million in grants to improve access to fresh produce and healthy foods through the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); 

• The USDA's Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program. The number of farmers markets has increased 67% over four years, according to the release.

Not all observers are impressed by the USDA’s initiatives and handing of the data. 

“We’re all allowed to our own opinions about the merits of each of the programs mentioned above,” writesDrovers CattleNetwork editor Mary Soukup. “Overall, though, instead of turning a scientific study into a political tool to tout the Obama administration, this report would have provided much more beneficial information if it had looked at consumption rates of key food groups to better understand the decisions working age adults are making to follow a well-balanced diet.” 

Indeed, that information would help not only “help farmers and ranchers adapt their operations to meet changing consumer demand,” as Soukup suggests, but also marketers, supermarket chains and restaurateurs. Not to mention consumers themselves. 

As Time’s Alexandra Sifferlin points out, “adults were less likely to say that being thin or fat was something they couldn’t control. This suggests that people are beginning to take responsibility for their weight and take positive steps toward maintaining a healthy body mass index (BMI).”