A report was released last week showing that New York City’s menu labeling law hasn’t been working to get people to reduce their calorie intake. The study involved a number of fast food restaurants in low-income areas of the city. Receipts from before and after the calorie figures were posted were compared to receipts from a comparable low-income area in Newark, NJ, where there was no labeling at all. In the end, the researchers found that despite the fact that people reported seeing the calorie info and saying it influenced their decision-making, the average amount of calories ordered actually went up.
Those who oppose menu labeling laws are claiming victory, and while I’ve tended to agree with them that menu labeling isn’t going to influence most people’s eating habits, I think there’s a bigger picture here. And I think the issue is more than just about getting people to make better choices, it’s also about gravitating towards an end where people’s overall set of choices gradually improve by having the calorie information out in the open.
As for the study itself, I think it was way too narrow to draw any large conclusions. Lower-income people are those least likely to be concerned with calorie intake over price. In fact, the uptick in the amount of calories consumed might be happening because people get higher calorie items in the belief that they’re getting more for their money. It’s very possible that studies of higher-income consumers in different types of restaurants would show declines in caloric intake. On the other hand, the result of this survey requires some reconsideration of the meaning of previous surveys cited by labeling supporters that showed that people notice the calorie information and that it influences their decision-making. The New York study found the same thing – 90% of the people said so – yet it wasn’t leading to lower calorie choices in the end.
Where I tend to agree with supporters of menu labeling is that having the calorie information out in the open often spurs the restaurants themselves to provide healthier choices. As Corby Kummer notes here, Starbucks has already modified some of their higher-calorie items in response to the laws and even some fast food chains have been altering their menus. In the end, I see this as a worthwhile benefit to the labeling laws. While the vast majority of people aren’t going to change their eating habits, if restaurants are motivated to reduce the calorie counts of their offerings in various ways, there will certainly be a positive downstream effect of that.
That said, my concerns about menu labeling haven’t changed much either. Will these requirements be imposed on all food outlets, potentially making it difficult for smaller restaurants to comply – especially ones who rotate their menus a lot (in King County, the requirements only apply to large chains)? Will the calorie measurements themselves be accurate enough to be trusted? Are they simply inaccurate for places like Subway, where you custom make your own sandwich? None of those are serious enough concerns for me, but my main concern is what happens to restaurants with higher calorie items (because there’s legitimate demand for it) who then become targets for overzealous public health officials. When the supporters of menu labeling move from simply trying to inform people’s choices to trying to limit them is when I hop the fence and start yelling with the libertarians.
But unless that point is reached (and maybe I’m somewhat naive for not thinking it’s guaranteed to happen), I’m ok with having restaurants forced to post the calorie totals on menus. It doesn’t influence my decision-making now, but I realize that it might in the future. I think what rubs me the wrong way about the opposition to these laws is how overt the astroturf nature of it is. For instance, here’s a release on last week’s study from the Center for Consumer Freedom. They proudly refer to themselves as the most vocal opponent of New York’s menu labeling law. But why? Posting calorie counts doesn’t threaten consumer freedom in any way. In fact, provided that the counts are relatively accurate, it arguably expands consumer freedom, by giving people better information to make choices. But in the PR world, buzzwords like “consumer freedom” have often been used to make people feel like they’re fighting for their own liberty when in reality they’re fighting to keep corporations from having to do extra work.
From this point, I think there are two directions this can go. Either the public health advocates are right and restaurants will slowly improve the healthiness of their offerings, or the libertarians and the restaurant lobby are right and this is only the beginning of a more aggressive effort to make our choices for us.
Nice to Agree with Lee
As an obese diabetic I strongly support the calory law for reasons other than the hope that the law will reduce obesity in the genral population.
My argument is libertarian.
As many as 20% of Americans are likely to develop diabetes and for that large group the right to choose what and how much to eat is very dependent on knowing the calories. Whether they/we follow the implicit advice is a matter of choice but without the label there is no choice.
In a sense, caloric labeling serves more “disabled” people and is as rational as putting wheel chair ramps at corners, ..and caloric labeling is a lot less expensive!
Where I work, at the UW Med Center,amazingly the calories are NOT shown. I had to fight with them even to get them to sell unsweetened tea along side the sickly sweet diet coke.
Lee does raise two issues I would like to address:
1. Accuracy: I do not think this is a real issue. While fans of calorie counting may get obsessive, the small errors he refers have very little importance over the long run. This may be more of enforcement issue than anything else.
2. Burden on Restaurants: any law like this needs some rational boundaries. If I go into my favorite Italian Restaurant (Percheno) and ask David to make me a cacciatore, I do not him he should have to weigh out ingredients, etc.
However, a huge part of what we all eat comes from some form of mass production … ranging from Factory Burgers to Cocacoffee Latte. The UWMC cafeteria uses recipes the additional cost of determining calories would be miniscule for them.
Finally, it may be useful sometime t discuss the validity of the sort of outcomes research Lee refers to. I have recently been reading some seminal papers on a very different approach to such studies, an approach that is widely used by economists and sociologists. As Lee notes, the usual approach has an awful lot of uncertainty .. too much to have a negative result mean a lot.
The bottom line is, for those of us afflicted with obesity caloric labeling provides a choice.
Calories are often misinterpeted. A calorie is measured by burning the substance and getting it to increase the temperature of a liter of water 1 degree C.
Wood has plenty of calories – but if you eat it, you will get no calories absorbed.
Absorbable calories are what is important. That can change with the food that is eaten – for instance, fiber can bind fat, so it is not absorbed.
Eating lots of fruit and vegies and non-processed foods will help people lose weight.
Even salads can be a problem if the dressing is too sugary.
And fats and cholesterol are not necessarily that bad for you…the type of fat matters (Omega-3 fatty acids are better and we don’t get enough of them).
the latest data says that low-fat diets are not as effective as low carb diets. Both work, but low carb works better. I like low carb better – but I eat plenty of fruits.
If I do eat carbs – they are whole grains.
wow, I mostly agree with SJ and with Lee…will miracles never cease.
CNR
The issue here ought not to he one diet vs another but simplicity. Calories are easy to determine, including “useable” calories, and there is no question about what they mean.
A lot of the other things people do to help themselves, eg trying to lower cholesterol by choice of fats, are not very reproducible or of unclear benefit (omega 3s) but can be very costly to a restaurant trying to sell food using low paid labor.
SJ: Actually, usable calories estimates are not very accurate – they assume you eat only one thing (how many of us do that?) and that the mix of foods in a meal do not alter the calorie intake (a false assumption).
For instance – if you eat a high fiber nut with dried fruit – you get less carbs absorbed than if you ate the fruit only.
SJ: You said:
Umm, do I have to cite all the literaure on the health benefits of Omega-3’s….or maybe just the seminal study in Eskimos showing that their rate of heart disease is reduced by 40% over expected, despite a high fat diet. Or the study showing that eating cold water fish 3X a week can lower the risk of a heart attack by more than a statin drug.
Of course, as a diabetic and Pathologist, you know that the #1 cause of death in diabetes is heart disease.
Or maybe just this summary from the Mayo clinic site:
Link for the Mayo site:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/heal.....nt-fishoil
Personally, I’m in favor of as much information as possible. While it might be too much of a burden to impose upon the neighborhood restaurant, it’s pretty easy for the fast-food chains to comply.
A couple of years ago I checked out the calorie counts of several places near my work, including picking up a quick breakfast or lunch. At the Burger King I found that a Whopper Meal, when upsized in order to get the large drink, pretty much maxed out my calorie and fat count for the day. The fries had almost as many calories as the hamburger! When I do have to go through the BK drive through, now I just order a Whopper Jr. and a small water, which costs a buck plus tax, and has about a third of the calories of the Whopper Meal.
I also found that a sausage bisquit meal from BK or McDonalds has as many calories as a Denny’s Classic Grand Slam breakfast. If I go to Denny’s and order the Grand Slam with toast instead of pancakes, I can cut the calorie count almost in half. But with coffee and a tip, it’s still going to cost me about ten bucks – twice as much as a BK or McD meal, but it’s a bit more pleasant. The lowest cost alternative is a sausage bisquit sandquich from either BK or McD with a small water – skip the fried potatoes. Again, it’s a dollar plus tax. Of course, an apple or an orange would have been the healthier and cheapest alternative.
Which brings us to the final issue – cost vs. health. The NY experiment might have been hit by the fact that everyone’s saving money these days, and it costs more to eat healthy. During the last year McDonald’s profits were increasing while neighborhood restaurants around the country were closing due to the rescession. It seems the McDonald’s dollar value menu actually increased sales.
Want to do something about calories and obesity? Why not keep overweight and unhealthy people out of my health insurance pool? Oh, that must make most of you Metrofuzzies really uneasy. I mean, with all those victims of, of, of what? Overeating, all kinds of social inequities………..what ever? Hey, let’s start being honest. There are a few folks, who have hormonal, or glandular issues with weight, but the vast majority just suffer from what my grandpa Harry called elbow/mouth interaction syndrome. Yep, every time their elbow bends their mouth opens. If we would make unhealthy people, who make unhealthy life choices pay their true cost of healthcare, they would clean up their act or end up paying a fortune. Oh, I know, they would run down to the emergency room, etc. etc. etc.
Someday maybe we will stop rewarding bad behavior.
I was going to list the health problems attributable to obesity, but there is not room in this “submit section”, or this page, or this blog server.
@1 As many as 20% of Americans are likely to develop diabetes
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The numbers are absolutely staggering, aren’t they? Many people have no idea they have the disease or are pre-diabetic. See:
http://www.pophealthmetrics.co.....4-7-16.pdf
including Table 2 on state-by-state data. Note the data for the Southeast.
Nah. You, and no one else, has any damned business caring about what choices I make (and don’t you dare complain about the increased cost to the public for other people’s health choices, because [collective] YOU chose to take those costs on).
I entirely and wholly reject anything anyone has to say about getting me or anyone else to make better choices, or “improving” my choices by adding choices you think are better. If you are trying to change my habits, or the habits of a restaurant, through social engineering legislation, then you can go to hell. It is none of your damned business, literally.
That said, I support labelling (not necessarily labelling laws) because I do believe in the right of consumers to make educated choices. Not BETTER choices according to your views or mine, but EDUCATED choices. If they see that a Big Mac with super size fries has over 1200 calories and they still want one, great! More power to them. I couldn’t care less. I just want them to BE ABLE to know what they are buying, so they can make an informed decision if they choose to.
I go back and forth on whether labelling should be required, and in what cases, but I can accept labelling as an explicit compromise position: in exchange for allowing you to force labelling, you don’t ban any foods. Unfortunately, that truce has been violated by your side.
Give me trans fats, and/or give me death.
In the end, the researchers found that despite the fact that people reported seeing the calorie info and saying it influenced their decision-making, the average amount of calories ordered actually went up.
Yup. About the time that the economy went to hell. People bought the cheapest food they could get. I bet that buying the most calories for the buck did factor it.
Given a choice between 4 $1 burgers or a $8 dollar “healthy” meal, I’m going for the burgers. I can get full and still have bus fare. Eating healthy costs money and time. Who has that these days?
A chronic stoner with the munchies talking about calories. How ironic and comical.
I think the point of labeling laws is to give people a choice, not tell them what to do, which is why I support them. Without labeling laws, you have no idea of what crap a restaurant is feeding you, and your only alternative to swallowing it blind is to not patronize restaurants. So, these laws should be good for restaurants by giving calorie-conscious patrons (and there are some) more confidence in what the restaurant is serving them.
Yes!!!
But, at the same time I want to and think I have a right to know what I’m putting into my body. So, I support food labeling laws.
At one time I thought there should be smoking establishments, restaurants, bars whatever . Places where people felt free to congregate and unwind (poison themselves) with a cig. I’m for freedom so why not?
But then at a time where people are clinging to employment options for dear life and juggling so many family and financial struggles, that would unfairly impose a bad health hazard on workers.
Just don’t smoke – it’s not good for you. Imposing your smoke on others is not good. If you want to poison yourself, you must not impose on the freedom of others.
@6 CNR
This actually pretty much my field. There are vast problems with this sort of research and a vast gap between correlation studies and causal studies. Many of the risk factors for vascular diseases turn out to not indicate effective outscomes whgen those factors are manipulated. For example, there are disturbing data that raising HDL may make matters worse.
As an example, despite a “heart healthy” diet, Finns hbve historically had a high incidence of atherosclerotic vascular disease. The reasons are probably not genetic, as we now have the power to map genetics. One suggestion is that the carcinogens in smoked foods are responsible, bTut that is hard to prove.he arguments about the benefots of red wine follow a similar course.
A related issue is the issue of antioxidants. Despite a lot of data, so far efforts to modify outcome with antooxidants have not worked. We do not know if this is because the underlying hypothesis is wrong or because it is difficult to make changes in these pathways.
As for the Mayo, they .. along with similar organizations, say a lot of things that are probably safe but may not be true. part of the problme arises because true intervention studies can easily cost 100s of millions of dollars.
I have not recently reviewed the omega three literature so there may be developments that are more impressive than I know about, if you want me to do so I probably will.
Labelling laws actually revealed quite a few surprises. I found that in some restaurants, the items which appeared to be the “healthy choices” (salads topped with grilled chicken) had calorie and fat counts identical or greater than many other items on the menu. Apparantly they went to a lot of trouble to add lots of fat to the dressings to make them taste better, thereby removing any calorie or fat reduction benefit in ordering the salad.
( roots
You need some facts.
What you call obesity is actually opart of human genetics. We evolved to live about 40 years and to optimize slat and colarie retention in the wild.
With ciclization, we lived longer and .. probably as a sreuslt, a huge number of humans have what is called “metabolic syndrome.”
This does nto excuse anyone’s obesity, inclouding my own. However, the idea that controllign obesity would have a dramatic effect on everyone’s insurance is utter BS. if anything my likelihood of dyingyoung is higher than yours and the loonger one lives as an aged person the higher the health costs to society.
BTW, the same thinsg is true for cigarettes. There are seri0us arguments that smokers save us all money because they die young.
So .. to follow your reasoning, I should be able to be part of a pool with others who drive very lttle (auto accidents are very expensive), do not hunt or ski, etc.
Pudge
The messiah must be here if you, Lee and I actually agree on something!
No problem there, Perhaps the latter, and quicker, will improve the region.
As a formerly obese diabetic, I have personally found the labeling very helpful. About 80 pounds worth of helpful. I no longer require any medication for glucose control, or for my vascular system.
I personally don’t give a shit about WHAT the conservatives here think or want, with any luck the society at large will recover some sense of decency and exterminate them like the other vermin. If they wish to eat like the rest of the pigs, it will save us money in the long run. Just insist they pay for the choices at the hospital. Don’t sluff it off on the rest of us.
I got no sympathy for drunk drivers, either.
19: Don’t forget that the relationship between obesity and Type II diabetes is confusing.
Most of the public assumes that people become diabetic because they are overweight. This is supported those who are able to cease or reduce their medication after losing most of their weight (usually due to bariatric surgery, etc.). But what a lot of people forget is that there is a significantly larger percentage of people who will remain diabetic even after losing most of their excess weight.
Which brings about the question: Is the excess weight a cause of diabetes, or merely a symptom of diabetes (or pre-diabetes)? Some doctors are suggesting a symbiotic relationship, where pre-diabetic conditions trigger weight gain (especially in the mid-thorac region) which then creates it’s own metabolic environment, increasing the diabetic trend (and at the same time increasing yet more fat growth).
Type II diabetes is not a failure of the organs to produce insulin. Instead, it is cellular disease which prevents the cells from using insulin to unlock the cells so they can receive glucose from the blood stream and convert it to energy. They body will keep putting out more insulin trying to force the cells to receive it, until eventually the organs give out and significantly reduce their insulan production. Treatment of Type II diabetes has been to use drugs (Glucophage, Glyberide, etc.) to trick the cells into being more receptive to the insulin. But daily doses of those drugs for the remainder of a lifetime can be very expensive.
Note that when the cells are insulin-resistant, that means that the patient has very little energy. The body simply isn’t processing the available sugar in the blood supply. The cells send messages to the body that they need fuel, which sends messages to the brain that say “feed me!”. But more food only increases the sugar supply (glucose) in the blood stream, since the glucose don’t pass the cellular wall barrier to be converted into energy. In the bloodstream the excess sugar eventually gets converted into fat, but not before it does quite a bit of harm along the way.
So for those who like to classify diabetics as lazy “couch potatos”, remember that their entire body is working against them. They don’t have energy to exercise, their body is telling them they need to eat more to get energy, and the excess sugar in their system is being converted to more fat, complicating many other health problems. Trying to beat back this increasingly cummulative effect is a bit like trying to hold your breath – your willpower will take you so far, but eventually your body forces you to give in despite your best intentions.
@19 BTW, the same thing is true for cigarettes. There are seri0us arguments that smokers save us all money because they die young.
———
This issue has been the subject of much research, as I’m sure you’re aware.
“Ironically, although promoting good health habits such as smoking cessation may be good for Americans’ health, this may be bad for Social Security’s and Medicare’s future ?nancial health, as will be ap- parent from results we present in this book. This does not mean that promoting health is not a desirable public policy objective, but rather that this objective comes at a cost. Having estimates of impacts of smoking on cash cows accruing to Social Security and Medicare are important for documenting the trade-off.”
The Price of Smoking
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalo.....8;mode=toc
X’ad:
Thank you for admitting that the explicit reason why this nation was founded, and its government created — to secure individual liberty — is offensive to you.
Noted!
Wow a nice back & forth argument of until ylb arschloch discussed the “calories of smoking” and X’ad whipped out the old political hatchet.
When this first came to light in NYC, Puddy referred to this link and the over-boasting of
Did you find it ylb arschloch in your tctmgr database of PuddyMissives?
Now Puddy asks who are the study subjects? What other socioeconomic factors are involved here? What makes Newark so special for comparing it to NYC? From the US Census figures Newark has
People are way poorer in Newark. Well it seems the preliminary data says EPIC FAIL to the NYCDoH&MH. So why did this happen? Maybe people don’t want others telling them what to eat? Maybe people don’t care what they eat? Maybe people want to enjoy food for the taste of enjoying food?
Maybe…
Puddy has no problems with caloric content labeling. Puddy has issues if this data will be used for taxing foods like the proposed soda tax people are discussing in order to control people.
You go girl, give him hell.
What caused you to self-medicate?
And like the new cigarette taxes, I wonder which economic group will be hit hardest with a tax on soda.
I wonder if the obama is eating enough calories.
When code pink scares you, you know you better start hitting the weight room.
I understand the president being scared of big mean fox news, but damn, afraid of the very people that voted for him.
I for one use the calorie information now available in restaurants. People should have ready access to information on what their ordering. If they choose to eat unhealthy food anyway, that’s their choice.
geezus..go eat a god damn salad you fat fucks.
just plain comical…we need laws because idiots cant control what they put in their own damn mouths….what a bunch of pathetic losers.
“I entirely and wholly reject anything anyone has to say about getting me or anyone else to make better choices”
yeah, I should be able to murder, rape and kill! I should be able to toss my wife out with no property division, no child support! I should be able to skiop school and the military and put my shit on the yard instead of using sewers!
and what’s this regulating goods in the marketplace! in traditional times the king never ever regulated weights and measures or ensured people weren’t misinformed! what are all these laws requiring accurate lables, too, if someone wants to say something’s from usa and it’s from china tought shit! that’s their liberty!
no laws can be passed at all, woo hoo!
Liberty!!!!!!!
I thought you would be interested in this new take on omega-3s in Prevention Magazine: http://health.msn.com/nutritio.....=100245164
studies like this are meaningless. as long as people vote through their representatives or thru popular vote to require calory information, that is all the justification that is needed. and anyway the long term effects might take years to develop. it took years to make smoking culturally looked down upon, yeats to make drunk driving a no no, etc.
They are the life water of hope sometimes missing in the older generation. ,