According to the British Medical Journal, recent studies showed that customers of popular fast food restaurants are now taking advantage of the menu posted at the establishments where they could count the calories of each meal before giving their orders.
Since March 2008, all restaurants are obliged to post their meals’ calorie count so customers can be guided accordingly and start looking for healthier choices. The survey was actually conducted before and after the regulations was set. Since the calorie regulation started, most consumers ordered meals that are more than a hundred calories lesser compared to what they used to purchase before.
Aside from that, the same conducted survey said that most customers never thought how high the amounts of calories present in the food until they saw the restaurant’s postings. About 15 percent of these fast food junkies are now using the calorie-count menu before they decide on what to eat. Dr. Thomas Farley, the commissioner at New York City Health, said that New Yorkers are having a hard time choosing which food they should eat before the menu was posted. Now that the number of calories per food item is already publicized, it’s now easier for them to pick a meal without feeling guilty afterwards.
In United States alone, obesity rates are always at its peak regardless of the age. Six in every ten adults in New York are considered overweight. This data was from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. It’s also alarming that about four out of ten kids are obese as well. Obesity often leads to heart-related conditions which is actually one of the main causes of death in New York.
According to Dr. Lynn Silver, they still have to find out whether this regulation will have long-term effects or not. She also mentioned that labeling food calories alone is not the only solution against obesity. However, it can still be a very helpful tool in informing the public about the food that they eat. While she works as one of the authors at the British Medical Journal, Silver is also the head of the Bureau of Chronic Disease under the Office of Science and Policy in the Health Department.
The survey was actually conducted during lunchtime in New York and about 15,000 respondents participated. There were about 168 fast food establishments and 11 famous food chains in the city.
