The Checkup: Knowing How Long It Takes to Burn off Restaurant Food Could Help You Make Smarter Choices

• If you knew it would take two hours of walking to burn off a cheeseburger (yikes!), would you still eat it? The preliminary results of a new study indicate that, no, you wouldn’t. Researchers at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth ran an experiment to find out if restaurant menus printed with timed exercise equivalents next to food items (like, say, 50 minutes of walking for an order of onion rings) would lead to healthier dining choices than menus printed with calorie counts. They used a cohort of 300 people between the ages of 18 and 30, who were given menus with either exercise equivalents, calorie counts, or no measures at all. They discovered that those who got the exercise menus made the best choices; they ordered and consumed fewer calories than those in the other two groups. Interestingly, HealthDay notes, “Among those who received the other two menus…there was no difference in the number of calories ordered and consumed.” Read more here.

• So sad: A man died during a Tough Mudder race in West Virginia over the weekend. The 28-year-old apparently never resurfaced after diving into icy water as part of the obstacle course, and it took rescuers several minutes to find him and pull him out. Race organizers say they are “devastated” and are cooperating with investigators. Read more here.

• On a more uplifting note, a college track athlete at the University of New Hampshire has decided to end his season—and, ostensibly, his track career—to donate bone marrow to a stranger in need. After senior shot-put star Cameron Lyle found out he was a 1 in 5 million match for a 28-year-old male who is suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia, he decided to hang up his track spikes and help the man out. Deadspin has more.