As Michelle Malkin wrote this week, calorie counts on menus simply do not work: A new study by the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School found that calorie counts on menus do nothing to sway people’s food choices.
This is just the latest study to come to this conclusion — it joins a number of others showing the same results. Another recent study, conducted in Great Britain where menu labeling is mandatory (as it will be in the United States thanks to Obamacare’s passage), found customers’ menu choices stayed the same despite the information provided to them. A study conducted at NYU’s School of Medicine and published in the February 15, 2011, edition of the International Journal of Obesity found that menu labels have little effect on the food choices made by either teens or their parents.
In 2009, a joint NYU/Yale study published in the journal Health Affairs examined 1,100 customers at four fast-food restaurants in poor neighborhoods in New York City (where obesity rates are high) and found that only half the customers noticed the prominently posted calorie counts. Of those, only 28 percent said the information had influenced their ordering; nine out of ten of those said they had made healthier choices as a result. But upon inspection of their receipts, researchers found that these same customers who said they made healthier choices actually ordered items that were higher in calories.
Michelle Obama has a favorite study that she likes to cite when pressing the agenda of restaurant regulation. Last year, the White House Task Force on Obesity issued a report recommending calorie information on menus. Citing an unnamed study, the report said “when presented with calorie information (how many calories are contained in each menu item) and a calorie recommendation (how many calories men and women of varying activity levels), people on average order meals with significantly fewer calories.”
Hmm, interesting. Where in the world did this groundbreaking study come from? It seems to counter the findings of these large university studies that all seem to be in agreement.
Further digging reveals that this study was conducted in one Subway sandwich shop on only 292 participants, the vast majority of whom where adult white males, 25 percent of whom admitted they were currently dieting. This isn’t exactly research upon which major policy decisions should be based.
Yet this study will do for the White House Task Force on Obesity, and it’s clearly good enough for the first lady. In the face of larger, more scientifically produced studies, they will cling to these minuscule studies to defend their regulatory tendencies.
The fact that no one is benefiting from these regulations seems not to matter. Neither does the fact that these unnecessary regulations only hurt business and raise prices for consumers.
...and a calorie recommendation (how many calories men and women of varying activity levels)...
It looks like some words are missing from the parenthetial phrase.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI am shocked, shocked, that Michelle Obama would rely on such a "racist" study as evidence to support her program.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"The fact that no one is benefiting from these regulations seems not to matter. Neither does the fact that these unnecessary regulations only hurt business and raise prices for consumers."
What matters is that imposing new rules makes the nanny staters feel better about themselves. That's all that matters.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI don't suppose anyone remembers SnackWells - the very useful unscientific study on whether calorie counts on foods helps reduce weight. SnackWells, the purportedly "perfect" diet dessert, with near to 0 calories, flew off the shelves when first introduced. Dieters loved the little cookies because they decided they could eat endless SnackWells and still lose weight. Guess what - eating more food, regardless of calorie count, causes you to gain weight. And, consuming primarily low calorie foods seems to cause people to "catch up" calories by eating more of something.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseConclusion - disclosing calorie counts is meaningless for any purpose other than government intrusion to a personal behaviour.
Regulations mandating calorie info on restaurant menus is not a bad idea because it doesn't have the desired effect of influencing people's choices, but because the desired effect is not the government's business in the first place.
If we concede that the government has the right to decide what people should eat while merely arguing that information alone is ineffective, the next government step will be to take even more coercive action, and quite logically so.
Abraham Maslow said that if the only tool available is a hammer, soon every problem begins to look like a nail. Government's only tool is coercion and to it every problem looks like too much freedom.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn all fairness, perhaps these studies are asking the wrong question. I'm probably unusual, but the knowledge that I'm about to eat 1,000 calories of ice cream in one setting does not stop me from doing that ... but it does prompt me to limit my next meal to between 150 to less than 300 calories. Not entirely healthy, but there's some balance there.
On the other hand the greater point is correct: I don't need an official calorie count to know when I've eaten a lot in one meal and need to cut later.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhile they shouldn't be mandatory, I absolutely believe people would make better choices if caloric information was readily available at every table. People don't realize when they're in a nice, high-quality restaurant that many menu items pack more than 2,000 calories per dish and they'd be better off at McDonalds. And not enough restaurants voluntarily reveal this information to say whether they work or not.
There are too many more important issues conservatives should be fighting right now than whether or not restaurants should be forced to post calorie menus.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGoing to a restaurant is a treat for me. When I go, I get what I want. Calories DON'T matter.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOf course calorie counts on menus "work." They make liberals feel really good.
Oh, I'm sorry. Was there another goal?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf Mrs. Obama and her fellow nannies were serious about fighting obesity, they would crusade for the abolition of sugar and corn subsidies. The subsidies are one of the primary reasons (if not *the* primary reason) for the glut of cheap junk food in the U.S. If you subsidize something, you get more of it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Washington Legal Foundation did a study a few years ago that clearly defines why labeling won't work with restaurants. It's an eye opener, especially if you're in the camp of "It's only extra information. Why is that bad?"
Link to report below.
www.wlf.org/upload/BashamLuikWP%20final.pdf
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI gotta disagree with you on this one. As someone with a predisposition to high cholesterol and who wants to keep to a healthy weight, when I saw some of the calorie and fat counts on meals I would have thought were at least somewhat healthy based upon how I cook those items at home, I was gobsmacked by the high numbers - like a Miso salmon entree at the Cheesecake Factory that comes in at over 1600 calories or a 1000 calorie turkey club sandwich at California Pizza Kitchen. Not only has it helped me avoid unhealthy meals, I've also learned which restaurant chains to avoid altogether for ridiculous amounts of fat, calories and sodium in their meals.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI actually don't have a problem with the labeling - although I prefer that the companies do it on their own w/ no govt mandate. That said, I still would like to see someone look into when the obesity epidemic started. I have a suspicion that this all began shortly after the govt changed the body mass index classifications. I remember them doing it and there being a minor uproar about it because the new BMI classifications made so many athletes and otherwise healthy people 'obese' or 'overweight.' I thought back then that it was meant as an assist to the trial lawyer's lobby to help them in their quest to sue food companies. I may be having poor memory...and I know that there are a lot of obese/fat Americans...but I believe that the articles and studies about the increase in obesity or obesity epidemic started after these changes were made. It would certainly make it easy to make a statistical argument that obesity is an epidemic.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow, just Wow. So basically the Government will mandate an onerous regulation on the restaurant industry based on one dubious study that flat out states it’s informational. I love how they approach people at lunch time, offer free subs, have a sample in which over a quarter of people are dieting, 61% are male, 29% are Asian!, and only 11% African American, and my personal favorite – they basically rank the sandwiches in order of calories. Absolutely no problem with that sample being representative, the sample size, or built in bias, I mean, its science right? Good to observe that Obama isn't politicizing science, like only those evil Republicans do.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBig Mother Is Watching You!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat is it with Michelle Obama's obsession with what Americans put into their mouths??!
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