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| As of March 2011, certain fast food establishments began posting calorie information on their menus |
Pennsylvania has terrible bagels. While the Keystone State has many redeeming
qualities, its bagels are not one of them.
About a year ago I was visiting upstate New York and made my regular
stop in one of my favorite bagel shops.
It was a chain establishment, not quite like the “mom and pop” ones in
New York City, but still one of my favorites.
The menu however had changed since my last visit. Next to all the menu items there were numbers
for the calories in each item. As a
health educator that has spent a lot of my career working with adolescents
conducting personal diet analysis, I was fascinated and intrigued by this new
phenomenon in New York.
I was so used to working with students and clients that were
not aware of calorie content in the food they eat, particularly what they
drink, that I must have been speaking out loud to myself at seeing the 430
calorie coffee drink right there in black and white. At that moment, the shop owner engaged in a
conversation with me regarding this recent New York State menu regulation. He explained to me that within a few months,
many restaurants were going to be required to reveal the calorie content on
their menus. I nodded with interest and
continued to listen. He summarized his
explanation with, “Now the government has to tell us what to do. As if we can’t make our own choices!”
A conversation about ideology seemed rather fruitless
because swirling through my mind was the reality. We are now looking at an American public
where 2/3 are considered overweight or obese.
The health and economic costs to this reality has been devastating. While obesity is associated with an increased
risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, some cancers, hypertension, high
cholesterol and sleep disorders, it has had a detrimental impact on our
healthcare costs. In 2008, an obese
person cost our medical system $1429 more per person than someone of normal
weight. Overall, this adds up to a
systemic cost of $147 billion a year to our public and private insurance pools.[i] In a study done by the USDA, Americans spend
42% of their food budget away from home.[ii] An extra 134 calories a week from one
additional meal away from home amounts to an extra 2 pounds of body weight each
year.[iii]
As of March 2011, nutrition labeling
in chain restaurants came to Pennsylvania as well as the rest of the
country. A provision in the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act now states that there must be clear nutrition labeling on the menu at all chain
restaurants with 20 or more establishments.
Additionally, vending machines must also contain nutrition information. Establishments in which their primary role is
not to sell food, such as movie theaters and bowling alleys are exempt from
this provision.
I simply replied to the store owner, “because of your new menu labels, now I can make my OWN informed choice.”
I simply replied to the store owner, “because of your new menu labels, now I can make my OWN informed choice.”
[i] Finkelstein, EA, Trogdon, JG, Cohen, JW, and Dietz, W. Annual medical spending attributable to obesity: Payer- and service-specific estimates. Health Affairs 2009; 28(5): w822-w831.
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