About a year ago the federal government required all chain restaurants to include calorie counts on their menu, but a new study shows the information isn’t helping customers.
The study, by Elizabeth Gross Cohn and published by the Journal of Urban Health, shows not all calorie counts are straightforward.
The problem
Menu items may have a calorie count near them, but some don’t distinguish serving sizes, while others give a wide range of calories.
For example, the study reports, a bucket of chicken was listed as 3,240 to 12,360 calories, but the menu board did not contain enough information to determine the number of pieces of chicken in a serving size.
Similarly, a hero combo meal ranged from 500 to 2,080 calories, but no information was provided on how a consumer would order within the lower range of this menu item. Specialty pizzas were offered in wide ranges without a clear explanation as to how they differed, since the calorie count was based on a standard size and standard set of toppings.
“In low-income communities with a high density of chain restaurants, and where educational attainment of consumers may be low, simplifying calorie postings and minimizing the math required to calculate calories would increase menu board utility,” Cohn said.
A potential solution
Cohn and her team say this could make it hard for some people to diet or to maintain their weight. Researchers suggest a more detailed description.
“As further legislation is developed, we support the FDA in their commitment to having menu boards that are useful at all levels of literacy,” they conclude.
“We support a system that uses dashes or slashes to more intuitively associate calorie counts to food combinations instead of the current system of ranges. In such a revised system, a breakfast sandwich, for example, would be listed as “egg with ham/bacon/sausage 350/550/750.”
A total of 70 menus in 12 different restaurants in NYC were reviewed and rated for this study.
