| In: Public Health Policy
New York City Versus the Restaurants: the Battle to Reveal the Calories
It has indeed been a battle and The New York Times recaps the latest developments:
The Bloomberg administration, in its continuing fight against obesity, reintroduced a measure yesterday to force chain restaurants to display calorie information on their menus or menu boards, after a federal judge struck down a similar measure last month.
The new regulation would apply to all restaurants operating in the city that have 15 or more outlets here or across the country.
Many chains, including McDonald’s, Burger King and Starbucks, already provide calorie information on their Web sites or on posters or tray liners.
But health officials say customers rarely see this information before deciding what to order. The regulation would require the calorie counts to be posted as prominently as the price of each menu item. For many fast food outlets, that means the information would be added to the big signs behind the cash registers that list food items and prices.
“The big picture is that New Yorkers don’t have access to calorie information,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city’s health commissioner. “They overwhelmingly want it. Not everyone will use it, but many people will, and when they use it, it changes what they order, and that should reduce obesity and, with it, diabetes.”
The new regulation would apply to about 10 percent of the city’s 23,000 restaurants, about the same as would have been affected by the previous regulation. But those that would fall under the new regulation serve about a third of all food eaten outside the home here each year, according to health officials.
They say most fast food customers simply have no idea how many calories they are taking in.
A typical McDonald’s lunch of a Big Mac, large fries and a medium Coke has about 1,320 calories, about 66 percent of the recommended daily calorie intake for an adult. A Burger King triple Whopper with cheese has 1,230 calories. One Boston Kreme doughnut at Dunkin’ Donuts has 270 calories.
The article continues.
1 Response to New York City Versus the Restaurants: the Battle to Reveal the Calories
www.topweightlosssecrets.info » New York City Versus the Restaurants: the Battle to Reveal the …
October 28th, 2007 at 11:25 am
[...] Fat Loss Victory put an intriguing blog post on New York City Versus the Restaurants: the Battle to Reveal the ….Here’s a quick excerpt:Thomas R. Frieden, the city’s health commissioner. “They overwhelmingly want it. Not everyone will use it, but many people will, and when they use it, it changes what they order, and that should reduce obesity and, with it, diabetes.” … [...]