Nutrition labels help fast-food eaters cut calories, study shows

(CBS/AP) The city that never sleeps apparently doesn't read calorie counts either. A new study looking at New York City's fast-food restaurants found only one in six customers actually read them.

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The good news, city health officials say, is that customers who look at the counts actually order something healthier - items with 100 fewer calories.

In 2008, New York became the first U.S. municipality to require chain restaurants to post calorie counts, and other places like California and Seattle soon joined in. Come next year, all chains with 20 or more locations will be required by a new federal law to print calorie counts on menus.

"Calorie labeling alone won't cure the obesity epidemic but it is one part of trying to address it," said study co-author Dr. Lynn D. Silver, director of the Office of Science and Policy at the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The study - published in the July 26 issue of the British Medical Journal - was the first large-scale look at the law's success. Silver said it showed modest gains in getting people to order lower-calorie meals and led restaurants to offer healthier options like salads.

For the study, researchers looked at lunchtime purchases at 11 fast-food chains around New York in 2007, before the city law was passed, and then again in 2009. They spoke to nearly 16,000 customers about their orders and read their receipts. Overall, they saw little change. But customers ordered fewer calories, on average, at three major chains: McDonald's, Au Bon Pain and KFC. Those restaurants also introduced healthier options around the same time the law was passed, according to the study.

But popular sandwich chain Subway showed a big increase in the average calorie count of a lunch order, which the authors linked to the popularity of its "$5 foot-long" promotion.

Some customers checked calorie counts more than others. Women were more likely to use them when deciding what to order, as were people in wealthier neighborhoods. The least likely to look were young people. More than 20 percent of customers at Subway and Au Bon Pain paid attention to calorie counts, an increase from the overall average of 15 percent.

Dr. Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University and author of the blog "Food Politics," said the study confirms that once people pay attention to the calorie counts, they make dietary changes.

"The next step has to be to get more people to look at the info."

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[Nate650]

I see that calorie and fat counts continue to be emphasized, yet attention should be focused elsewhere. The real cause of the health crisis is inexpensive low quality processed foods which contain trans fat, HFCS, artificial preservatives, flavors, colors, pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics, to name a few of the unhealthy ingredients used in industrial foods.

Many traditional foods like virgin coconut oil and butter from grass fed cows are high in fat but are nutrient-dense. Such foods are not the enemy, even though the government has falsely accused them for decades of being so.

Here's something to think about: Suppose we have two people which are clones of each other. Suppose one eats a daily 2000 calorie diet consisting solely of Big Mac's, and the other eats a daily 2500 calorie diet consisting solely of organic unprocessed whole foods. Who do you think is going to be healthier? What people should really be looking at is where their food comes from, the ingredients it contains, whether it's certified organic, and how processed it is, not how many calories and grams of fat it contains.

[Blake_Carrington]

"Where's the beef indeed." You know what you get when you mix cow noses, ears, fat and maybe a little meat? 100% beef. If you knew what was in those burgers, you wouldn't feed it to your dog. They use everything the butcher throws out, washes it with amonia and grinds it all up and that's why a burger can be had for $1.

Oh, you thought 100% beef meant 100% meat? Um, no it doesn't. French fries are the worst food on the planet followed by potato chips. The sodium, fat, and calories are a colesteral bomb. It would take 1 hour and 30 minutes on a treadmill at 4 MPH at 5 incline to burn the calories in a dollar burger and small fry. That doesn't account for the massive amount of salt that will give you high blood pressure, which can lead to a heart attack.

I already spend an hour on the treadmill and don't have an extra hour and a half by endulging in a five minute "meal". I had eaten this garbage years ago, before I found out what was in it. No wonder I have since lost over 40 pounds. There are places to get a good burger, but fast food joints aren't among them. If you're not paying $7 for one, then you aren't getting real meat. Skip the fries and ask for veggies.

Google "1950's images". After seeing dozens of photos of groups of kids and adults, see how many you can find that are obese. One out of a hundred maybe? This was before the fast food craze. Before technology allowed our kids to be sedentary; glued to TV, computer screens and sitting around texting all day.

My son can watch 2 hours of TV as long as his homework is done and he exercises. His cell phone is mine after 8:30 pm. He bikes with me or walks for a couple miles nearly every day. We play frisbee on the beach, he's on the ball team at school and is a great swimmer. [Some] Parents are relying on technology to raise their kids, they feed them pizza and burgers so they won't have to cook and set bad examples for them. My son deserves better.

[SunDog8259]

Yeah, when I heard about "meat glue" and Googled it, that was a turn off to buying any processed meats like turkey bologna or ham, or can you even tell anymore? The last brisket, ham and turkey I bought were 'Enhanced with a 10% solution of ...?' Say what? We just want the meat -- nothing extra please, and while you are at it please remove the carageean from your heavy cream!

[haessler]

You have to be joking! This did not work in Germany and it is not working here. Just go to any fast food joint or restaurant and you will see that people mostly do not look at caloric amount, but order what they want. You need to get out and about and you will then see this. Junk food is big everywhere and I bet you eat it too. Go to Italian restaurants and look at the pasta, bread and oil sopped up. Go to Mexican restaurants and look at the greasy/fatty entres being gulped. Go to any restaurant and check out what people are really eating and they are not concerned with calories until they are anorexic or bulemic, or intelligent enough to choose wisely. The latter are few!

[Blake_Carrington]

You have just lost your "bet" with me. You presume everyone is like you described, but there is the other 1/3 of the population, although a minority, who aren't like that (see my post).

I do not eat fast food - EVER! I don't eat sweets either - NONE! Absolutely no deserts of any kind. Cake and donuts for example have no nutritional value at all - it's really not a food group if you think about it unless you consider "garbage" one of them. I don't eat chips or snacks either. I don't buy them so I don't have them in my home. I don't let my son eat those things either and he understands why.

I also don't go to Mexican restaurants. It's not necessarily the calories and fat (but that would be enough), as much as it is that I don't like the taste of that cuisine; it all tastes the same anyway. I have been to an Italian restaurant, but it's been at least a year and they didn't serve a bowl of oil with the bread and I don't eat any bread with enriched flour and all kinds of things one cannot pronounce.

I do think this measure is a step in the right direction for the future. Adult habits are hard to change and people are just not aware of what is in what they eat. However, going forward our children will know, even if they have to find it out by themselves. When I was in school, there might have been two or three fat students (sorry, but obese is fat). My son sees so many, but he knows why and he's not one of them. It's not just over eating (although that's part of it), it's eating the wrong things. People need to know if they eat a quarter pounder, fries and a large soda that they have just about used up their daily calorie allowance right there at one time. After the fact, diets don't work and only eating wisely and exercising can change that and maintain it.

I don't know about Germany, but it's hard to criticize a move in the right direction. If people don't pay attention to menu information, you can't make them. At least the information is out there, where in the past it wasn't.

[SunDog8259]

Looking at that picture -- where's the BEEF? All I see is white bread and rabbit food? I sometimes have a large fast-food burger or egg muffin. Just toss the bread, eat with a fork and you're good to go. Still hungry? then have another. No need to count calories, no room for dessert. I have lost over 50 pounds eating like this; without increasing exercise, plus my health and energy has improved. The word needs to get out there, the latest research supports: "it's what you eat not how much." Are you listening out there RD's and MD's? Care to comment?