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I'll have the cheeseburger anyway
A study out today suggests posting calorie information at fast food restaurants might not accomplish a damn thing.
The study's being published online at Health Affairs. This is a hot topic, as several cities have enacted calorie-labeling laws, and a measure in the health care reform bill would require chain restaurants with 20 or more locations to post calorie info.
In the study, researchers interviewed people outside fast food joints in New York, shortly after the city's new law took effect. From the New York Times:
(They) found that about half the customers noticed the calorie counts, which were prominently posted on menu boards. About 28 percent of those who noticed them said the information had influenced their ordering, and 9 out of 10 of those said they had made healthier choices as a result.
But when the researchers checked receipts afterward, they found that people had, in fact, ordered slightly more calories than the typical customer had before the labeling law went into effect, in July 2008.
They ordered more calories. Now, this wasn't long after the law took effect. But the researchers' conclusion?
"I think it does show us that labels are not enough," Brian Elbel, an assistant professor at the New York University School of Medicine and the lead author of the study, said in an interview.
Is that what it shows? Researchers interviewed exclusively in low-income neighborhoods. The Times caught up with a few people in the same areas:
William Mitchell, from Rosedale, Queens, who was in Harlem for a job interview, ordered two cheeseburgers, about 600 calories total, for $2.
When asked if he had checked the calories, he said: "It's just cheap, so I buy it. I'm looking for the cheapest meal I can."
Tameika Coates, 28, who works in the gift shop at St. Patrick's Cathedral, ordered a Big Mac, 540 calories, with a large fries, 500 calories, and a large Sprite, 310 calories.
"I don't really care too much," Ms. Coates said. "I know I shouldn't, 'cause I'm too big already," she added with a laugh.
Perhaps for low-income people, price trumps all. Or maybe posting calories makes things worse? From Associated Press:
The plan could backfire, said Stacey Rosenfeld, a New York psychologist who specializes in eating disorders. If you don't order what you want because it's high in calories, you might become dissatisfied and overeat later, she said.
Jessica Setnick, a Dallas-based dietitian who works with children and teens to address weight and eating issues, points out that nutrition information has been out there for years on packaged foods.
"People either think it doesn't apply to them -- these people still won't care -- or they are overly preoccupied with calories and fat grams and focus too much on the insignificant data," she said. "The people in the middle, who eat appropriate amounts of a wide variety of foods, don't need nutrition information on a menu to guide them."
I'd put myself in that group, but I still like having the information. I'm sure there are people who could use more education about healthy eating, but you can't shove broccoli in their mouths. And it's not clear that even if you did, they would chew it. They might just spit it out and order a box of fries.
New York already has an ad campaign about daily calorie intake. And it's making restaurants post the information. What "more" is there to do?
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information at fast food restaurants might not accomplish a damn
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Hardly worth a tinker's damn until they post a number on the fly count swarming over the dumpster and another count on fly maggots squirming inside your burger, King.
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This food is fit for a king. Here, King!
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Arph. Arf
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Obesity & Magic Pill :
I personally recognize that wheat is a far better diet than meat on the ground it normally exits body with ease and rapidity, and we are well aware that our heath depends upon smooth metabolism and blood stream associated with the immune system and how important our daily workout is, as well.
I still think the critical conditions mostly come from breach of our immune system, and the food that stays long in the body is more likely to become a source where germs, bacterias, viruses and the like multiply.
Sounds outlandish, but wheat might be a principal "clean and healthy" food that has led western society to the most decent culture of all.
Disadvantages of meat consumption :
1. The food that stays long in the body looks more likely to become a source where germs, bacterias and the like multiply, which even gives birth to critical conditions involving prostate cancer.
2. The consumption of meat proved lethal as earlier this year, the expansive, long-term release concluded about a third of more than 500,000 Americans aged 50-70 with this behavior tends to wind up with premature fatality caused by cancer, hypertension and more.
3. The in-take of pork raises risks of catching swine flue and its mutation, costing around the initially estimated $2trillion dollars word-wide and endangering recovery,
(( Genes included in the new swine flu have been circulating undetected in pigs for at least a decade, according to researchers who have sequenced the genomes of more than 50 samples of the virus. The findings suggest that in the future, pig populations will need to be monitored more closely for emerging influenza viruses, reported a team led by Rebecca Garten of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a report released by the journal Science.))
Still, media downplay this fact out of small thinking to protect meat industry.
4. All but media influenced by meat industry blame calorie for overweight or obesity rather than fat, I still think Fat equals Fat by definition and common sense.
5. Hot dogs are often associated with food-borne illness. Though other food items carry listeria , FDA (Food and Drug Administration) studies have shown a high level of the harmful bacteria on hot dogs, processed meat and ready-to-eat meat products. And consuming hot dogs and other processed meats increases the risk of cancer
The class-action consumer fraud lawsuit underway in New Jersey is based on a report from the American Institute for Cancer Research.
Its findings included this fact: Consuming one 50-gram serving of processed meat (about the amount in one hot dog) every day increases the risk of colorectal cancer, on average, by 21 percent.
Nitrites, used to keep hot dogs fresh, are the main culprit, according to the suit.
While nitrites are commonly found in many green vegetables, especially spinach, celery and green lettuce, the consumption of vegetables appears to be effective in reducing the risk of cancer. Because these vegetables also contain Vitamin C and D, which serve to inhibit the formation of carcinogenic compounds, they actually reduce your cancer risk.
6. Two thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, which branch into so many different kinds of diseases, excess body fat increases risk for numerous cancers, costing up to $147 billion a year.
7. America needs to put focus on a sustainable energy industry to become a lead exporter, in place of a fast food business where the overall loss outstrips gain more than known, from my stance.
Provided the average temperature is getting higher, accordingly all forms of germs, bacterias, viruses, and influenza etc are more likely to multiply.
Some skeptics say the warning against hazards of climate change is overstated, but judging from more frequent and widespread outbreaks of e. coli, salmonella, and bird, swine flu cases endangering human lives and economic recovery seriously, some prompt measures need to be taken, I guess.
Also, Breathing toxic chemicals in the outdoor air exposes all Americans to a lifetime cancer risk at least 10 times greater than the level considered acceptable under federal law, shows new data released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Thank You !
"For anyone trying to be conscious of calories, eating out is a big mystery; you never really know how much you consumed."
This is utterly ridiculous. Of course you know how much you consumed -- your body tells you when you're full (if yours doesn't, well, that explains the problem)! At a given meal, your body doesn't care whether you're full on Big Macs, fettucini alfredo or carrot sticks, it just wants to be full. The food doesn't just sneak into your stomach unawares.
"Or maybe posting calories makes things worse?"
I can think of another possible reason for this. If poor people are concerned about price of food over all else, the equation they are after is really (calories/dollar), with higher ratios being better. If a double cheeseburger for $1 has the same calories as a $4 subway sandwich, it's a no-brainer.
So by posting the calories, you do "help them make better choices," just not the kind of choices the researchers were anticipating. Instead, the calorie counts help people figure out which items offer the most calories for the lowest cost, with the result that the avg number of calories purchased increases! D'oh!
Hey Art, knowing "how much you consumed" in volume is not the same as knowing how many calories or how much fat you consumed. Eating 8 oz of cheesecake is a lot different than eating 8 oz of tofu, to reference extremes.
The "mystery" when eating out, at least for me, is knowing how many calories and how much fat is in a given dish because the food is cooked and seasoned much differently than labeled, pre-packaged food. Deep-fried chicken has different nutritional properties than baked chicken. The sauces used to make many prepared dishes in restaurants contain a lot of calories, but as a consumer, I currently have no way to know which ones. If I knew that ording a Big Mac with no "special sauce" reduced the calorie count by 100 (which is very likely), I might substitute mustard, which has zero calories instead. Why is disclosure a bad thing? It isn't like they are making you read a sign a liability form... yet.
What everyone seems to be denying is the fact that people who care about counting calories or eating healthy aren't eating fast food anyway. That vegan down the street won't even step into a McDonalds, and that marathon runner addicted to protein bars looks down on Wendys with scorn.
Fast food has experimented with low-cal options on their menus, but it should be no surprise that they just don't sell. The exception to this rule is when a franchise markets itself from the beginning as health food (e.g. Jamba Juice) but even then people will be startled to know the health information in the food they are ordering.
In this way I think these rules will cost health-oriented fast food business, and will do nothing for the rest of the fast food industry.
I think posting the info is great, even if it doesn't change everyone's behavior. For anyone trying to be conscious of calories, eating out is a big mystery; you never really know how much you consumed. Too much like swiping the credit card and worrying about the bill later.
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