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Super-vise MeIt's OK to feel guilty about eating fast food, but is it the government's job?

By Christopher Flavelle
Posted Wednesday, July 2, 2008, at 6:28 AM ET
Subway lunch

This month, restaurant inspectors from New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, scourge of both smokers and trans-fat lovers, will add a new violation to their checklist: the failure to display, in large type and directly on the menu board, the calorie counts of every item on the menu.

The city claims that the new law (PDF), which applies to restaurants with 15 locations or more nationwide, will lead to 150,000 fewer New Yorkers becoming obese and 30,000 fewer developing diabetes over the next five years. Other cities are following the city's lead, from San Jose to Seattle. Public-health officials have praised the plan, arguing that anything that might reduce obesity is worth trying.

This is the latest salvo in a war that local governments are fighting against Americans' diets; other examples include Chicago's ban on foie gras (reversed by the city council this year, with two aldermen citing the law as "an embarrassment") and New York City's restrictions on "sous-vide" vacuum cooking and its ban on trans-fats, which took full effect Tuesday.

The case for calorie labeling rests on several arguments, some sturdier than others. High-calorie diets have been shown to contribute to obesity, and fast-food restaurants often have higher calories per meal than food prepared at home. "People eat about half their calories outside the home," said Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale. "And when they do eat out, they tend to eat more, and what they do eat has higher calories."

Second, New York cites studies showing that people do a poor job of estimating the calorie count of the food they buy at restaurants. According to Brownell, even dieticians grossly underestimate the number of calories in dishes served at restaurants.

But will telling people how many calories are in their meals actually change what they order? To answer that question, New York City commissioned a study last year in which researchers interviewed customers leaving fast-food restaurants about their purchases. Since Subway was the only restaurant that displayed calorie counts on the menu board (rather than on its Web site or tray liners), the researchers focused on Subway customers, to see whether the calorie information had an impact.

Nearly one-third of those customers reported seeing the calorie information, and more than one-third of those in turn reported an impact on what they ordered—a result the researchers backed up by looking at customers' receipts. The difference was significant: Those who said they saw the calorie information bought meals with 52 fewer calories, on average, than those who didn't.

Does this mean that menu labeling causes people to eat better? Maybe. As the study's authors write: "Subway patrons might not be representative of all chain restaurant patrons: Subway patrons purchased fewer calories than did other chains' patrons." After all, for years Subway has shoved Jared Fogle's shrunken waist size in our faces, directly targeting people concerned about their weight.

So, the survey's results may not be easily applied to other restaurants. Yet the Department of Health does just that: Its projections for reducing obesity and diabetes are based on the premise that Subway customers are representative.

Christopher Flavelle asks diners in Times Square whether the new menus are likely to change their eating habits:

Historically, the health benefits of food labeling are hard to pin down. In 1994 Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, which required companies to put a standardized list of ingredients on most packaged food products. The NLEA was a victory for advocates of consumer information, but its ability to make those consumers buy healthier products seems to be limited.

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Christopher Flavelle is a contributing writer for The Big Money, Slate's business site, which will launch later this month. He was previously a speechwriter for Stéphane Dion, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.
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