Archives for the 'research' tag
New Study: Menu-Labeling Laws Make People Eat More Calories
From today’s NYT (emphasis mine):
A study of New York City’s pioneering law on posting calories in restaurant chains suggests that when it comes to deciding what to order, people’s stomachs are more powerful than their brains.
April Matos, 24, bought a Happy Meal at a McDonald’s for her 3-year-old son, Amari, and a Snack Wrap for herself. “Life is short,” she said. “I started eating everything now I’m pregnant.”
The study, by several professors at New York University and Yale, tracked customers at four fast-food chains — McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken — in poor neighborhoods of New York City where there are high rates of obesity.
It found that about half the customers noticed the calorie counts, which were prominently posted on menu boards. About 28 percent of those who noticed them said the information had influenced their ordering, and 9 out of 10 of those said they had made healthier choices as a result.
But when the researchers checked receipts afterward, they found that people had, in fact, ordered slightly more calories than the typical customer had before the labeling law went into effect, in July 2008.
All this makes the stand of the upscale (and very good) Houston’s chain against New York City’s menu-labeling requirements all the more excellent.
More from the NYT here. When I interviewed the fantastic Brian Wansink, a professor, author, and former USDA official, for Reason.com earlier this year, he noted that menu-labeling laws and other such meddling have
“…either been ineffective or disturbingly counterproductive,” he says. “All the data we’ve seen about menu labeling doesn’t show a consistent answer at all.
“Trying to change capitalism is a lot of work,” he adds, “and it won’t work.”
Indeed it won’t. Hear that, Ezra? Hear that, Mr. Brownell?
