After much hullaballoo, New York city chain restaurants now list calorie counts on their menus. The idea is that such information will induce people to make healthier choices, than say a Big Mac, coming in at over 1,000 calories.
But that's widely optimistic. People understand when they are eating healthy and when they aren't. This information may work on the margins--that is, with items that seem healthier than they actually are--but just presenting the information isn't going to change behavior, it would seem to me.
What would be more effective is to list the calories and give consumers a healthier option. For instance for 1,000 calories you can have a Big Mac or you can have a chicken breast, soup and small salad. Given that you are in a McDonald's not all of those options are reasonable, but the overall point is to give consumers information that is more useful because it's relative to what they know, while absolute calorie counts mean very little and provide no information on how to change behavior.
Eateries digest calorie-count law
No comments:
Post a Comment