Posting Calories On Menus Makes People Eat More

Since 2008, fast food restaurants in New York have been required to post calorie counts next to items on their menus in an effort to get consumers to take more care over what they're eating. Great idea, and one I'm generally in favour of. Being more transparent about what people are shoving into their mouths, especially at fast food restaurants, should, logically, encourage people to consume less calories.

But, according to two research papers by NYU and Yale, consumers actually ended up consuming more calories after the changes were made. So much for transparency. I can think of a number of reasons why this might fail, but two spring to mind:

1. If you're ordering a super-sized anything at a fast food restaurant, worring about calories probably ain't at the top of your list of things you're worrying about.

2. I'm sure your brain is probably going - "wow, if I order the slightly larger one, my cost per calorie just fell. Score!".

Comments

[traineeinvestor]

I tend to work on the theory that by not reading the lables my stress levels will go down and I will be better off as a result.

[Ed Burke]

The calorie-counting mandate on fast-food restaurants is just more of the same obsessive social control foisted upon the unwashed masses by the hypocritical liberal elites ("Don't mind my private jet, I bought carbon offsets!"). When the calorie counts start showing up on the menus of the chic eateries of Beverly Hills and the Upper East Side, then I'll start to take the idea seriously.