With mandatory calorie information in restaurants in New York, and Congress calling for calories to be displayed on fast food menus throughout America, we might hope that fast food consumers are starting to pay attention and reconsider eating that giant burger.
Unfortunately, early indications aren’t good…
A study carried out in New York City found that just six people out of a sample of 4,311 paid attention to calorie information.
Christina A. Roberto and her colleagues from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut watched diners at a number of different fast food outlets (McDonalds, Burger King, Au Bon Pain and Starbucks) in New York City.
And as Reuters reports, the researchers had a fairly generous definition of what constituted checking calorie information:
Customers were considered to have looked at the nutrition information if they walked up to a poster with the information and turned their head toward it, picked up a pamphlet, or touched the screen of the computer that Au Bon Pain restaurants use to provide nutrition information.
So do fast food diners just not care about the calorie content of their food? Or is this information still not accessible enough – perhaps if calorie counts were displayed as clearly as prices, people would take heed.
Roberto believes the latter, and told Reuters:
You’ve got to have this information in a really highly visible place, like on a menu board. The way it’s offered now is just not an effective way to disseminate that kind of information to the public.
One flaw with the study is that it’s possible that regular fast food diners had checked out the calorie information on a previous visit.
Do you ever eat fast food? (Go on, confess!) If so, do you pay attention to the nutritional information?
I understand your reasoning but there are two problems with that:
1. Many people genuinely don’t get it. I know many people who do not know how much calories it’s good for them to get per day, what is an “empty” calorie, what is a “good” calorie, what’s “good” fat etc..
2. If you get fat and you become a burden on society because of that (health care, squeezing me on a coach flight etc.) you actually impact other members of the society. So it’s not your PERSONAL choice. Unless you decide to always travel first class and never ask a dime from the government for your health care expenses related to the overweight.
the fries are good but there to salty
Take a good look at the FDA food regulations and you will see all sorts of blessings the US government allows food producers to lie to consumers on what is on the nutritional lables and what is natural. YES they do allow and give good blessings for them to lie to consumers. Educate yourself, Ben.
This is a lie. The government doesn’t “bless” advertisements for food (in the US). Please stop lying to people.
Thank god, this is a hugely important move. I mean, come on.. If we all had more knowledge on the subject, a lot of us would choose not to eat at those places. Although, some people still would, and will, just because they like the taste.. But, to each his/her own I suppose..
Haha, yeah right! I wouldn’t drive to that place just to eat a single bypass… Id do at least the triple.
True, it goes against EVERYTHING I preach, and believe in, but once in a while you DO need to live a little. Plus how can you say to those cute “nurses”.
Actually I can say no, just at that moment I’d prolly chose not to!
Ugh, I meant “as in NYC.” I wish there was an edit button!
So, I think a correction should be made to this blog entry. The study only used a handful of restaurants in NYC. Judging from the Reuters link, it was mostly done in Connecticut where the calorie information is not as readily available in NYC.
Another thing wrong I find about this study are the locations the researchers chose. According to the Reuters article, they used 2 of each franchise mentioned in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New Haven, and other Connecticut suburbs (who knows how many places that is). The ONLY place in this study that requires calorie information to be prominently displayed on menu boards and menus is Manhattan. In the other places, they are available in poster boards or pamphlets. Have you ever seen those poster boards at McDonald’s? It is a large grid with small print…. Who wants to take the time to read through that when visiting a restaurant?
I’m not taking this study seriously unless they adjust their sample selection and methods of determining who has looked at calorie info.
“Customers were considered to have looked at the nutrition information if they walked up to a poster with the information and turned their head toward it, picked up a pamphlet, or touched the screen of the computer that Au Bon Pain restaurants use to provide nutrition information.”
I think that is too rigid a definition for looking at calorie information, and the number of people who pay attention to calories in this study is underestimated. In a lot of the fast food places in NYC (like McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts, even the new Yankee Stadium), the calorie info is displayed on the menu board right next to the prices. Calories are also written inside menus at sit down places like TGI Friday’s. So when I look at the menu board or an actual menu, how can a researcher know if I look at the calorie information or not unless they can read my mind?
Also, it places I go to a lot, I already know how many calories are in certain things, from previous visits or from looking online. I LOVE the calorie law in NY… it has helped me avoid giving in to really bad foods at restaurants that have 1,500 calories.
LOL, my husband’s away on a business trip in Yuma and one day while he’s down there, he plans on driving to Chandler to eat at the Heart Attack Grill. Just to say he’s been there, lol. He promised me he’d only get the single bypass burger though!
Healthy consumers aren’t reading calorie counts in fast food restaurants – they aren’t eating fast food in the first place. After all the only way you’re going to see calorie counts in a fast food restaurant is if you’ve already ordered your burger and are sitting down eating it, by which time it’s too late and the burger tastes way too good for calorie counts to make much difference at all.
How may calories we consume has precious little to do with how much calorific information consumers are exposed to, on the contrary being overweight and overinformed go remarkably hand in hand – never has a culture been so knowledgeable about their food and so overindulged at the same time. Which slightly-lower-calorie burger should we consume today – Are the healthy among us really asking this?
Of course not. Healthy folks are the ones who’ve been lucky or self-determined enough to learn to eat healthy, and possibly understand that the prevailing culture of physical indulgence brings precious little long-term well-being to body or soul alike.
Here’s an idea ~ why not stick calorie counts on apples and oranges, then surely the low calorie count will encourage consumers to eat fruit and vegetables, much as calorie counts on high-calorie foods will act as a deterrent! The intention is spot on and the need is great, but perhaps by addressing the real causes of America’s calorie intake, rather than burdening consumers with yet more information, will sustainable progress be made.
I don’t see requiring restaurants to give nutritional information to consumers causing the US to be “nanny state”. If you were to evaluate each consumer as they walked into a restaurant and say, “hmmm… you need to loose a few pounds – you can only order from our light menu.” That would be a nanny state.
Food producers have lied to consumers over and over again through advertising with the blessings of the government.
Give consumers some objective information. If they choose to use it is completely up to them.
Look up the quadruple by-pass burger from The Heart Attack Grill. 8000 calories baby!
That’s enough for 4 days worth!
I doubt this will do anything to change people’s habits. Those that are interested in this information have already taken the time to inform themselves.
I don’t eat fast food but I know people that do. my hubby for one. So, if I am sitting there, I am always curious to look at nutritional info because that is just me no matter where I go. I see nothing wrong with it since I know so many people that don’t have a clue & just don’t want to take the time to look it up first. You can ignore it if you want to…. just me though, I like the info no matter where I am…
Oh, OK, I am known to sneak a french fry or two from my hubby’s meal!
I used to eat fast food such as McDonald’s or Wendy’s, but when my brother’s boy scout troop used lard to show how much fat was in them, I stopped eating it. I also used to eat Chipotle, but after I looked up the calories (over 1,000) in a burrito, I stopped eating there as much, and only ate half a burrito at a time.
How much farther are they going to take this? They already require them to post the calorie counts SOMEWHERE, they can’t force people to look at them for crying out loud. Most people do not go to fast food restaurants to eat healthy food; they KNOW it’s loaded with calories and fat, so I’m guessing they don’t look at the nutritional info because it makes them feel guilty. The people that actually would look at the nutrition info are probably the people that aren’t at the restaurant of their own volition….their spouse or SO or kid dragged them there and they’re trying to find something at least sort-of healthy to eat there.
I know that when I do eat at a fast-food joint, I look up the nutrition data because I’m not your “typical” fast food consumer,
I think it is fine to post calories on menus. The main problem I see with it is that people who don’t care or count calories won’t have anything to compare it to. If you eat a cheeseburger that is 700 calories, it doesn’t matter to you because you don’t know that you can make one at home for A LOT less. Also, you don’t might not know how many calories you SHOULD be eating in a day. There is nothing to compare it to that shows that 700 calories is a lot. So unless they already know how many calories they should be eating in a day, there is no point on listing the calorie contents.
A nanny state would be banning “bad” foods. Providing calorie counts merely provides informative facts. If people choose to ignore it, so be it. But for the people who care about watching their intake or controlling their weight, they may deterred by the new knowledge that their lunch accounts for their total recommended daily calorie intake.
Knowledge is power.
I look it up online before going.
It’s definitely not the way to solve the obesity problem plaguing western society. Calorie counts for many foods have been available on packaging for years yet people still buy and consume them. Has the nutritional information on a candy bar slowed sales of that product? How about potato chips? It’s the same for fast food. People who eat at these establishments will continue to eat at them regardless.
If they want to fix the problem, they need to rethink their strategy and get at the root of it. A good place to start would be to stop letting these companies like McDonalds, Coke and Pepsi fund organizations that are supposed to be helping people like the National Grocers Association and supposed “research studies”.
The government wants to be your mommy. It’s because you’re all stupid and need to be treated like children. The people in charge are The Good People. They know how you should live your lives, just like your mommy did when you were 10 years old. You’re living your life wrong. Your government mommy will be cross with you.
Maybe people aren’t reading the calorie information because they think they’re adults? Perhaps it’s their way of telling their government mommy to back off and let them live their lives?
But I think it’s just that ordinary people don’t cower in the corner at the thought of a cheeseburger. They’re not health “nuts”. They didn’t ask for calorie information. They don’t care. That’s what’s wrong with this effort: you can’t force people to adopt your way of thinking. And if you want to force them, you are a bad person.
I don’t think putting it in people’s faces is going to result in them reading it or using it to make choices. If people are interested, they will seek out the information. If they aren’t, they won’t read it, even if it’s right in front of them.
When I go to a restaurant, I pretty much never look at the price. I order what appeals to me and meets my nutritional goals for the meal. Even though the price is RIGHT THERE, I don’t care, so I don’t look. If my goal was to eat as cheaply as possible, I would look, but it’s not, so I don’t. Ditto for people and nutritional information.
Welcome to the Nannie State.
People know fast food is not good for them, putting the calorie counts on menu boards and other places is just an attempt to guilt people into not eating it. And people who eat at these establishments could care less about what anybody thinks of their choice. Sure, some of them feel guilty about it, knowing they aren’t helping themselves, but that guilt isn’t enough to stop them.
There’s so much information out there and people have become, in my opinion, desensitized to it. We know its bad, we’ve all seen “Super Size Me”, you can’t escape the barrage. This in your face calorie push might only affect some people, but not enough of them. Christina Roberto doesn’t understand the problem which doesn’t surprise me.
People know fast food is not good for them, putting the calorie counts on menu boards and other places is just an attempt to guilt people into not eating it. And people who eat at these establishments could care less about what anybody thinks of their choice. Sure, some of them feel guilty about it, knowing they aren’t helping themselves, but that guilt isn’t enough to stop them.
There’s so much information out there and people have become, in my opinion, desensitized to it. We know its bad, we’ve all seen “Super Size Me”, you can’t escape the barrage. This in your face calorie push is might only affect some people, but not enough of them. Christina Roberto doesn’t understand the problem which doesn’t surprise me. Many of these food researchers don’t.
I used to eat fast food a few times every week, but I gave it up about 5 years ago. In the few times that I have eaten it since then, I would get an almost instant stomach ache afterward. Nowadays, we’ll get a pizza occasionally, but never “fast food.”
I’ve never paid attention to the nutritional information when dining out.