Fast Food Calorie Posting Not Leading to Less Eating
by Jacob Sullum
In July 2008, New York City began requiring chain restaurants to list calorie counts on their menu boards. The first study of this mandate's impact, published online yesterday by the journal Health Affairs, suggests that, contrary to the highly optimistic projections of its promoters, it has not led New Yorkers to consume fewer calories. In fact, the researchers found that the average calorie count for meals at fast food restaurants (McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, and KFC) rose by 2.5 percent in New York after the mandate took effect while remaining essentially unchanged in Newark, the comparison city.
Using a combination of interviews and data taken from diners' receipts, the researchers were able to measure the correspondence between what people said and what they did, which was less than perfect. The share of New York diners who said they noticed calorie counts rose dramatically after the menu mandate kicked in, from less than 20 percent to 54 percent (much bigger than the increase in calorie awareness observed in Newark). But less than a quarter of those who reported seeing calorie information said it led them to consume fewer calories. While this subgroup (13.5 percent of all subjects) ate less, on average, than the overall sample, they ate more than the diners who said they did not notice calorie counts. "Even those who indicated that the calorie information influenced their food choices," the researchers write, "did not actually purchase fewer calories."
This study covered four weeks, two before the calorie counts appeared and two afterward. Maybe the newly conspicuous information needed more time to have an impact, though it's hardly encouraging that even the people who claimed to have changed their behavior in response to the calorie counts did not actually eat less. It's also possible, as the authors suggest, that research focusing on affluent white people, as opposed to the poor blacks and Hispanics sampled in this study, might find evidence of an effect. Another limitation of the study is that it did not consider people who may have been driven away from fast food chains by the calorie counts. But it's not clear that such customers ended up eating less elsewhere; they may simply have sought restaurants where they would not be reminded of how many calories they were consuming.
In any case, it seems clear that menu mandate boosters have exaggerated this policy's power to make people thinner. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene predicted the menu regulations would stop 150,000 people from becoming obese and prevent 30,000 cases of diabetes over five years. The California Center for Public Health Advocacy claimed menu labeling would result in a weight loss of nearly three pounds a year per fast food consumer. Such results are hard to achieve if people do not actually eat less.
The main problem is that information accomplishes nothing unless people are motivated to use it. Since fast food chains were already providing calorie counts on their websites and on posters, tray mats, and flyers in their restaurants, weight-conscious customers had this information even before New York decreed that it appear on menu boards as well. The impact of making it more conspicuous therefore would be limited to the customers who are least inclined to use it.
I criticized New York's menu mandate when it took effect.
Sign up for the OV Daily Newsletter
OV Social
This is cute. My opinion is that menu mandates won't work, but I'm not going to blatantly misrepresent this study like "Reason" did. I hate misrepresentation of science and research since it points to America's hatred for facts, evidence, and reason in favor or ideology - just like Reason has done here.
This study has some serious issues. Sociological studies are, hands down, the most difficult studies to conduct for a whole host of factors. This study does suffer from limitations that are natural in sociological research. These limitations are usually cleared up by repeated study over and over again to get out all the kinks. Sociology is one of those topics where you can perform similar studies hundreds of times in a row and still not be sure your conclusion is correct.
First off, I'll point out this was a study of low- income , minorities. These are the people most likely to be utilizing food stamps / meal plans which cover very little. It's incredulously difficult to properly regulate caloric intake when you are crippled in your ability to make food choices for economic reasons and so they may have desired to curb behavior but could not. I would have liked to know what percentage of their participants were utilizing some form of food aid.
Secondly, the study fails to account for any consumers who upon seeing the labeling chose to frequent fast food restaurants at a lower rate and thus would see less occurrence in the study. I recognize this figure would be incredibly difficult to obtain (and I can't think of a way of doing so, so I don't fault the researchers). While I doubt this happened based on my own personal opinions, it is not outside the realm of possibility and it is a severe methodological flaw to not consider this.
Even their own "study limitations" section (and I applaud them for including this, study limitations are not listed enough in social science research!) they admit that eating habits tend to take a while to curb and so the length of their study (4 weeks) is a flaw in their model. The also admit that calorie posting may be ineffective because lack of education regarding caloric intake. Remember, the study took place amongst low-income, minorities and so they are the least likely to be educated concerning health matters (hey New York, try fixing your bargaining agreements in and the schools might get a little better).
What does all this mean? Reason has no right to come out and go "yipee I was right, HAHAHA!!" because they found a single study that pseudo-"supports" your view with the typical methodological flaw of any sociological study that inhibits the ability to make accurate conclusions. Way to go, try waiting for a few dozen before proclaiming victory.
Perhaps Reason should have read the own study's CONCLUSION:
"At the same time, our study does not necessarily imply that labeling is an ineffective policy. On the contrary, we found that some subset of consumers used the information to eat more healthfully. Calorie labeling could result in changes that do not rely primarily on alterations in consumers' food choices. Menu labeling regulations may encourage chain restaurants to offer more nutritious or otherwise improved menu offerings, which could be profoundly influential. Public health experts have shown that creating "default" incentives to improve well-being is essential to improving public health. By indirectly influencing restaurants to offer more lower-calorie items, menu labeling regulations could help encourage such default options for consumers."
I still don't think menu mandates are going to have any significant effect, but I'm not going to corrupt a study to make my point.
A few of your points are directly addressed in the above Reason article: "It's also possible, as the authors suggest, that research focusing on affluent white people, as opposed to the poor blacks and Hispanics sampled in this study, might find evidence of an effect. Another limitation of the study is that it did not consider people who may have been driven away from fast food chains by the calorie counts. But it's not clear that such customers ended up eating less elsewhere..."
The Reason article is openly-speculative and, with the use of first-person pronouns, Sullum makes it clear that it's an opinion piece. He is responsible in using qualifiers such as "suggests" and "seems" before uncertain statements.
I would go as far as to say that it seemed like the researchers were being dishonest and exposing bias when they said in the abstract that, "We found that 27.7 percent who saw calorie labeling in New York said the information influenced their choices. However, we did not detect a change in calories purchased after the introduction of calorie labeling," when it is later mentioned in the study that they actually DID detect a small INCREASE.
And, while the Reason article above is based on one, small study with acknowledged flaws, it's not like they had a bunch of other studies available to choose from. Very few have been done on this topic. It's not like they waded through tons of contrary results to find that ONE, anomalous study that links smoking to longer life.
well its because maby the people really dont care about even read the calories listed thats why most people never even bother reading nutiton lables on foods. this or as a part of the group said the didnt even see it. The fast food companys likely hide it useing small print and colur full pic to keep the dinners attation from it.