Calorie-Posting Conundrum

photo from bitchcakesny on flickr

This past week U.S. News posted an article about a study published a couple of days ago in the International Journal of Obesity. The researchers were looking to see if posted calorie amounts at fast food restaurants affect how teenagers and the parents of young children order.

The short answer? Not really.

57% of the teenagers noticed the calorie labels, but on average they ordered slightly higher calorie meals when the labels were present. Only 9% of them said they even considered the calorie information when ordering. Now the article doesn't say exactly what the results were for adults outside of mentioning the findings echoed earlier research by the same team. In the earlier research around 25% of adults who noticed the labels said they considered the information when choosing their food.

To some people, I'm sure this says that mandatory calorie-posting at fast food restaurants is a waste of time. But as I touched on in the dietary guidelines section of my last post, I think the posting of calories is a good start but people need context.

 If I had to guess, I'd say a large percentage of those adults who noticed/considered the calorie count just chose one of the items with fewer calories in relation to other items on the same menu. If you tell someone a sandwich is 500 calories - what does that mean to them? Well it seems like maybe a better choice than a 700 calorie sandwich. Does the average person have an idea of how many calories are ideal for them to consume in a day though? Unless they're on a calorie-counting diet, probably not. So 500 could be fine if you think you're supposed to consume 4,000 calories a day. But 1,500 a day? 500 is starting to seem a little high.

And don't forget, unless its posted or you're using equipment with monitoring software built-in, you probably don't know how many calories you're burning a day. Plus if you made food at home earlier, you probably don't know how many calories you've already consumed when you find yourself at the fast food restaurant, so that small bit of info on the sign can't really help you figure out if you're making a choice that's fairly likely to lead to weight gain.

It all gets really messy really fast.

We haven't even gotten to the part where your overall health is about so much more than calories. Sigh.

Read the whole article that got me going "Calorie Labels Don't Affect Kids' Fast-Food Choices" and try to think of it as a step in the right direction... on a really long road.

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