Friday, July 29, 2011

Calorie Labeling - Does it Work?

Dumanovsky, T., Huang, C. Y., Nonas, C. A., Matte, T. D., Bassett, M. T., & Silver, L. D. (2011). Changes in energy content of lunchtime purchases from fast food restaurants after introduction of calorie labelling: cross sectional customer surveys. BMJ, 343.


The study referenced above occurred over two time periods, one in 2007 before NYC adopted its labeling laws and the other in 2009 about a year after the law.  It takes a while for research to be analyzed, written up and accepted for publication.  I would love for them to do the whole thing again and of course, people will because the laws are being taken to scale - (nationalized).
The bottom line for this short study is that people who chose to USE the calorie information at the restaurants did have a significantly lower average of calories per meal than those who did not.  In other words, if you USE it - it works.  
The restaurants were all fast food chains and at the time of the 2009 part of the study 16% of the people who were surveyed used the calorie information. (there were over 8000 people at time two- 2009)

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