Would You Rather Walk a Mile or Walk For 30 Minutes?

Ticker

Monika Bauerlein,
CEO

Dear Reader,

The next few months are make-or-break for Mother Jones’ fundraising, and we need more online readers to pitch in than have been of late. In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we take a level-headed look at the brutal economics of journalism, why investigative reporting like you get from us matters, and why we're optimistic we can grow our base of support in a big way—starting with hitting a huge $300,000 goal in just three weeks. Please learn more and donate if you can right now.

The next few months are make-or-break for Mother Jones’ fundraising. We need to raise $300,000 quickly, and we need more online readers to pitch in than have been. Please learn more in "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," where we go into the brutal economics of journalism, and what makes Mother Jones unique and worth supporting if you can right now.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Aaron Carroll reports today on a recent study about the effect of calorie labeling on restaurant menus. Four different menus were randomly assigned to different diners:

(1) a menu with no nutritional information, (2) a menu with calorie information, (3) a menu with calorie information and minutes to walk to burn those calories, or (4) a menu with calorie information and miles to walk to burn those calories.

There was a significant difference in the mean number of calories ordered based on menu type (p = 0.02), with an average of 1020 calories ordered from a menu with no nutritional information, 927 calories ordered from a menu with only calorie information, 916 calories ordered from a menu with both calorie information and minutes to walk to burn those calories, and 826 calories ordered from the menu with calorie information and the number of miles to walk to burn those calories.

For the moment, let’s assume the study was done properly and these results are actually meaningful. Why would people respond so differently to minutes walked vs. miles walked? Here are a few possibilities:

Minutes don’t sound so bad. People vaguely figure they’ll do a few hundred minutes of walking just in the ordinary course of their day.
“Miles” strikes people as inherently more athletic. It’s the kind of distance you hear in the Olympics.
Most of us walk so little that we overestimate just how long a mile is.

To be honest, the first option is the only one that really sounds plausible to me. What am I missing? Assuming this isn’t just a statistical aberration, what would account for the large difference in response to minutes vs. miles?