SynthesisThe international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity2022
Calorie reformulation: a systematic review and meta-analysis examining the effect of manipulating food energy density on daily energy intake.
Synthesis in The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 68 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prospects of Food Taxes for Planetary Health: A Systematic Review of Modeling Studies.Nutrition reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Impact of energy density on energy intake in children and adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.European journal of nutrition · 2023Pooled it
- Socioeconomic position and the effect of energy labelling on consumer behaviour: a systematic review and meta-analysis.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2023Pooled it
- Eating rate has sustained effects on energy intake from ultraprocessed diets: a 2-week ad libitum dietary randomized controlled crossover trial.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2026Trial
- Consuming an unprocessed diet reduces energy intake: a post-hoc analysis of a randomized controlled trial reveals a role for human nutritional intelligence.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2026Trial
- Gut-derived appetite hormones do not explain energy intake differences in humans following low-carbohydrate versus low-fat diets.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2024Trial
- The impact of calorie labelling and proportional pricing on out of home food orders: a randomised controlled trial study using a virtual food and drink delivery app.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2023Trial
- Effects of a Web-Based Lifestyle Intervention on Weight Loss and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors in Adults With Overweight and Obesity: Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Trial
- Trial
- Concerns about attributing weight change to processing in a crossover feeding trial.Nature medicine · 2026Article
- Concerns around evidence that food processing should be included in dietary guidance.Nature medicine · 2026Article
- The Effect of Eating Rate of Ultra-Processed Foods on Dietary Intake, Eating Behaviour, Body Composition and Metabolic Responses-Rationale, Design and Outcomes of the Restructure Randomised Controlled Trial.Nutrition bulletin · 2025Article
- The role of hyper-palatable foods in energy intake measured using mobile food photography methodology.Eating behaviors · 2025Article
- Evidence on the effectiveness and equity of population-based policies to reduce the burden of type 2 diabetes: a narrative review.Diabetologia · 2025Review
- Nutritional value and environmental aspects of high-protein ultra-processed foods on the German market.Public health nutrition · 2024Article
- Ultraprocessed food (UPF), health, and mechanistic uncertainty: What should we be advising the public to do about UPFs?PLoS medicine · 2024Article
- Nutrients or processing? An analysis of food and drink items from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey based on nutrient content, the NOVA classification and front of package traffic light labelling.The British journal of nutrition · 2024Article
- Ultra-processed Food and Obesity: What Is the Evidence?Current nutrition reports · 2024Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDietary energy density is thought to be a contributor to obesity, but the extent to which different magnitudes and types of reductions to food energy density decreases daily energy intake is unclear. The primary objective was to systematically review and meta-analyse experimental studies that have examined the effect that manipulating energy density of food has on total daily energy intake. Secondary objectives were to examine moderators of the effect that altering energy density has on daily energy intake and effects on body weight.
methodsA systematic review and multi-level meta-analysis of studies on human participants that used an experimental design to manipulate the energy density of foods served and measured energy intake for a minimum of 1 day.
resultsThirty-one eligible studies sampling both children (n = 4) and adults (n = 27) contributed 90 effects comparing the effect of higher vs. lower energy density of served food on daily energy intake to the primary meta-analysis. Lower energy density of food was associated with a large decrease in daily energy intake (SMD = - 1.002 [95% CI: - 0.745 to - 1.266]). Findings were consistent across studies that did vs. did not manipulate macronutrient content to vary energy density. The relation between decreasing energy density and daily energy intake tended to be strong and linear, whereby compensation for decreases to energy density of foods (i.e. by eating more at other meals) was minimal. Meta-analysis of (n = 5) studies indicated that serving lower energy dense food tended to be associated with greater weight loss than serving higher energy dense food, but this difference was not significant (- 0.7 kg difference in weight change, 95% CIs: - 1.34, 0.04).
conclusionsDecreasing the energy density of food can substantially reduce daily energy intake and may therefore be an effective public health approach to reducing population level energy intake.
trial registrationRegistered on PROSPERO ( CRD42020223973 ).
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Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.