Does Calorie-Labeling at Restaurants Lead to Healthier Eating?

For consumers in California, New York City, Portland and Seattle, it might not come as a surprise that Starbucks’s raspberry scone contains 500 calories or the foot-long meatball marinara sandwich at Subway has about 1,160. But because these few local and state governments have introduced mandatory menu labeling in chain restaurants, have people been cutting back on the calories in their orders?

Consumers across the country will start seeing these numbers on menu boards when labeling requirements roll out nationwide as part of the new health care reform law. Findings on this approach’s effectiveness, however, have been decidedly mixed.

One small study conducted at an Asian-style fast food restaurant even tried to actively solicit customers to cut calories by asking if they would “like to downsize that” (rather than the now maligned “supersize that” offer) to cut 200 calories from their meals. About a third of consumers took the offer, but that rate did not improve when calorie counts were posted, reported New York University’s Brian Elbel at the American Public Health Association meeting in 2010. This difference suggests that although some consumers might be willing to change their lunch routine with a prompt, calorie figures did not seem to tempt them away from “visceral urges” when they stepped up to place their order, Elbel explained.

A new yearlong study, published online January 14 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that consumers at one fast food chain in the Seattle area were unfazed by calorie counts listed with their favorite menu items.

In January 2009 King Country in Washington State, which includes Seattle and some of its suburbs, started requiring chains to make nutrition information available for all of its offerings, including visible calorie counts (which also needed to be on drive-through boards by August of that year). So researchers compared consumers’ food choices at several locations of the Mexican-style restaurant called Taco Time before and after calorie numbers were posted—as well as with Taco Times that were outside of the regulated area.

After a year of looking at the labels Taco Time consumers were still not persuaded to ditch more of their beef Roma burritos (843 calories) in favor of regular chicken salads (196 calories)—overall order calorie totals (including sides and drinks) stayed relatively stable. Was this because health-conscious Seattle-area residents had already been able to make healthful choices via the chain’s “healthy highlights” menu? Or is it simply foolish to think that a few posted digits might come between people and their nachos?

Scientific American spoke with one of the study authors, Eric Finkelstein, an associate professor at Duke University’s Global Health Institute and in the school’s Health Services Research Program in Singapore, about why the extra helping of information did not influence ordering behavior.  Read Interview

By Katherine Harmon