A growing debate in the fight against obesity is whether or not adding more nutrition information to restaurant menus, specifically calories, will help consumers make more healthy food choices. Since 2003, Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a consumer-advocacy group, has led a campaign to require fast food and chain restaurants to add nutrition information to their menus. Their survey, and a number of others, indicate that two-thirds of Americans support requiring chain restaurants to display calorie content on menu boards and menus. Their report, Anyone’s Guess, claims when people eat out at restaurants, they don’t eat as well as at home. They consume more calories and saturated fat, fewer nutrients, like calcium, and less fiber. Children eat almost twice as many calories in an average restaurant meal than in a home-cooked meal.
A recent poll by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy shows Californians are not able to identify healthy food items on restaurant menus. For the survey, researchers asked 523 registered California voters to identify which menu items contained the most calories, fewest calories, least salt and most fat among four dishes served by Denny’s, Chili’s, Romano’s Macaroni Grill and McDonald’s. Sixty-eight percent of respondents answered all four questions wrong, 27 percent answered one question right and no respondents correctly answered all questions. Researchers note that the results remain constant when adjusted for age, income, education or political party. The survey also indicates that 84 percent of respondents support the effort to require nutrition labeling on menus in chain restaurants with 10 or more outlets. The center will use the new findings to support pending legislation that would require restaurants to post nutrition information on menus. The measure, sponsored by state Sens. Carole Migden (D-San Francisco) and Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), is designed to help consumers make healthier food choices and reduce the prevalence of obesity and related diseases.
The New York City Board of Health passed a measure that requires restaurant chains that already make nutrition information available to add it to their menu boards. Designed to help consumers make healthful food choices, there are already problems with the design of the ordinance. For example, Wendy’s, Quiznos, and White Castle (among other fast food chains) decided to remove the calories information they already provided on their website or nutrition brochure in the restaurant in order to exempt themselves from the ordinance. Wendy’s claims there is no room on their menu boards to comply with the ordinance so they need more time to figure out a solution.
I can see where this additional information would be useful to the people who know how many calories they should consume each day and are trying to keep control. I am not sure how useful the information would be to people who aren’t sure how many calories they should consume — or even what a calorie is. International Food Information Council (IFIC) Food and Health Survey has shown that 9 of 10 consumers are unable to provide an accurate estimate of their recommended daily caloric intake, nearly half would not even guess, and only one in three understands that a “calorie is a calorie” – meaning 100 calories from fat, protein, and carbohydrates are essentially equal calories. We need to do better at educating consumers about the basics in addition to providing more nutrition information on menus for those who are trying to make informed decisions. We also need to give strategies for dining out, such as starting with a salad and splitting an entree or having a large salad for dinner.
What do you think? When you eat out do you have any idea how many calories you are consuming? Do you care? Would you choose a meal based on the calories or other nutrition information? Do you support regulations that require calories to be placed on fast food restaurant menus?
Filed under: food industry, obesity, policy
an interesting post!
Your example of the NYC ordinance resulting in some restaurants who provided nutritional information in some form ceasing to provide what they had been is a classic example of a misguided policy application that increases the burden on ‘proactive’ firms and reduces their incentive to provide customers with information.
In Japan a vast majority of chains provide information on caloric intake (in kcal) for each item on the menu and often total kcal for ’set meals’. Provided people have a basic education on how to use the information, it is a great tool to have.
Ootoya (http://www.ootoya.com/menu/grand_01.html – in Japanese) does a pretty good job of this.
Thanks for the comment, le monde du voyage, and for the link…
Do you have any idea what is so different about the restaurant culture in Japan vs. the US that is leading to the voluntary sharing of nutrition information on menus? It’s interesting to also see calories for an entire meal. Most of what I see in the US is calories for a specific item, so even diligent consumers have to “do math” to really understand what they are getting.
I agree this information is helpful if you know how many calories you should be getting. Most of these dishes are 800-1000 calories. This doesn’t surprise me, as restaurant portions are generally “up there”. But since women over 30 only need about 1300 calories a day (disclaimer: broad generalization), they need to plan for very small meals to maintain their calorie range for the day. Having this information upfront, does make it easier… and isn’t it all about “easy” this day and age?
I would love to see nutritional info on a menu. I am in the process of becoming a nutrition therapist and am learning quite a lot about nutrition.
When I look at a menu I look for items that I think may be a healthier option, but when someone else is preparing the food you can’t be sure of what is going into it or how it is prepared.
I think that if nutritional info were on a menu even the nutritionally challenged have enough sense to make a better choice if the info were right in front of them.
The restaurants don’t want people to know how high the numbers are in their food!
Give people the tools they need to make good choices!
Christy – you and me both! I look forward to the day when restaurants need to post nutrition information to stay competitive because consumers are (usually) making choices of where to spend their money based on how healthy their food is. I just worry that people don’t have the nutritional awareness to make real sense of that information.
Hypothetically: If a person reads that a meal has 1200 calories does that mean anything unless they know they should consume 1500 a day?
I agree information is a tool and I would definitely use it… but I’m not “the average consumer” when it comes to nutrition and food choices. Still, I think some information is better than none and this information boosts nutrition knowledge and awareness and leads to healthier food choices then its progress in the right direction.
i kind of prefer the method subway usually uses with its better sandwiches….. have a chart near the ordering area.
The most useful information to post is ingredients and perhaps carbohydrate counts.
Thanks for the input… one of the challenges with a law approach is that some places would say that getting information on the menus is too difficult because of limited space…so how do you regulate it across the board.
I also like the subway approach. Also, just see if they have a website before you go. Not always practical, but a good idea if you have the time and know where you plan to go.
I think it is an awesome idea to have calorie information on menus. I have been using a website that tells me how many calories I should have a day and its quite difficult to choose when I go to a restaurant without the calorie information. The other day I ordered a chicken ceaser salad from Don Pablos. It was huge and I couldn’t eat the whole thing but I was *completely shocked* when I looked up their website later on and found out the salad had 1700 calories!!! It was more than my whole days worth of calories…I thought I was being good by having a salad! But I would have been better off having an item that I thought looked unhealthy, lots of other items on the menu were “only” around 700-800 calories. Talk about a way to get overweight.
Obesity and weight are such huge health issues in the US that I can’t work out why politicians can’t get their act together on this one. I guess the answer is obvious…
Anyway, its great to see that some cities are acting and moving in the right direction. I look forward to seeing updates on their progress!
[...] Here’s the original post I wrote on the topic of calories on restaurant menus. [...]
I’m doing a report on resteraunt health and need the info. Do you know where I should look?
[...] I’ve written a number of blog posts about calories on restaurant menus. I’ve publicly debated the pros and cons with myself and others who have shared their interesting viewpoints. But now it is starting to get [...]
[...] While looking over the salads I was shocked at how many calories they could potentially be when you added all of the dressing. Some were over a 1,000 calories. A recent poll by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy shows Californians are not able to identify healthy food items on restaurant menus. For the survey, researchers asked 523 registered California voters to identify which menu items contained the most calories, fewest calories, least salt and most fat among four dishes served by Denny’s, Chili’s, Romano’s Macaroni Grill and McDonald’s. Sixty-eight percent of respondents answered all four questions wrong, 27 percent answered one question right and no respondents correctly answered all questions (source). [...]