Calorie Counting Ads Hit NYC Subways

Health Department Aims To Remind Commuters About Healthy Eating Habits

(AP)  Craving a burrito with sour cream and guacamole? What if you knew it had more than half the calories you should eat in a day?

The city Health Department is expanding its healthy-eating campaign with subway ads that say most adults should limit themselves to 2,000 calories day.

Posters that appeared Monday in about 1,000 subway cars provide calorie counts for several menu items - like 470 for a giant apple bran muffin or 1,170 for a chicken burrito with toppings.

The three-month ad campaign is intended to build on the city's new regulation requiring chain restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus. Officials are betting people will eat fewer calories if they know how many they should consume.

"Small changes in your choices can make a big difference in your calorie intake," assistant health commissioner Dr. Lynn Silver said.

The ads are in 20 percent of city subway cars.

The calorie-posting rule applies to chain restaurants that have 15 or more locations nationwide. It took effect in May, but legal action delayed enforcement until July.

The 2,000-calorie figure is an average. Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations vary by age, gender and level of activity. Men can consume more calories than women without gaining weight, and 20-year-olds more than 60-year-olds.

New York City's calorie-count regulation has paved the way for similar laws elsewhere. California last week became the first state to require restaurant chains to reveal how many calories are in their standard menu items.

Natalia Kaplan, of Queens, said she hadn't noticed the poster directly behind her on an E train featuring that 1,170-calorie burrito, but she approved of the campaign.

"It makes you aware," said Kaplan, who said she pays close attention to the calorie information fast-food chains are now required to provide.

"If I go to Dunkin' Donuts, I look at the calories, and I try to take the least-calorie doughnut," she said.

[perm3800]

LoneStar - and you have to jog three miles to burn off an apple. They have since revised it but once upon a time, an hour of energetic *** burned off a slice of chocolate cake. It''s all silly, this notion that one size fits all for diet and exercise. Mr. Phelps may eat in excess of three thousand calories a day but he exercises for seven hours a day. I loved the recent guidance that said overweight folks could control their weight by exercising strenuously for three hours per day. Can I find three hours in my day, every day? Doubt it.

[lila356]

Frankly, I''m tired of people and ad agencies telling me what to eat, how much to eat and when to eat, and if I hear the term "Guidelines for Healthy Eating Choices" one more time, I''m going to barf. I''ve dieted for 35 years to keep my weight normal, I''ve read every book and calorie counter there is and now I eat when I''m hungry. Period. I am intelligent and can figure out that vegetables are lower in calories and better for me than ice cream. Have we become so out of touch with our own inner intelligence that we expect posters in the subway will help us lose weight. The only people who read labels are people who are already watching their weight and don''t eat fast food anyway. Maybe the food companies should stop putting garbage and addictive chemicals in the food that cause people to overeat, like high fructose corn syrup. It''s also about self esteem and emotions and many other factors. You can count calories until the cows come home, but if you are not well emotionally, spiritually, and physically you will be at risk for overeating and weight gain.

[lonestartnow]

Here''s just a single example of how "unaware" most of us are about the nutritional content of the foods we eat. When we''re kicking -off a LoneStart Team Esteem Challenge in an organization or workplace we point out that you have to walk the length of a football field to burn the calories in one, single m&m.