Here’s a question for you as a consumer: Do food calorie counts affect your behavior? Why or why not?
Here’s a question for you as a food marketer: Do you support calorie counts on restaurant menus and for vending machine food? Why or why not?
Well, next year, new Food and Drug Administration rules on calorie counts will go into effect. As reported by the NY Times:
“Now it’s official. Starting next November, menus in many places where Americans eat — like chain restaurants and some movie theaters, convenience stores, and amusement parks — will have to list calories. Consumer health advocates were jubilant when the Food and Drug Administration announced the new policy. Many had fought for the rule for more than a decade, believing it would be a major weapon in the fight against obesity.”
“But will it? The evidence on whether menu labeling works — either to move the national needle on obesity, or to reduce the number of calories an individual consumes after looking at a menu — is pretty skimpy, in part because the practice hasn’t been around that long.”
Click the image to read a lot more.
