Calories on menus: do they work?
I can afford the souvlaki — but can I afford the calories? Your lunch choice is about to become anxiety-inducing. Last summer, The Real Greek became the first restaurant chain in the country to include calorie counts of all dishes on its menus. Since then, Pret A Manger, Wimpy and the Camden Food Company have followed its lead. Pizza Hut, Harvester and several pub chains are considering making local trials national. Within two years, calories on menus could be the rule.
They are all trailblazers for an initiative from the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which believes that providing calories on menus will help us to make healthy eating choices. A national consultation ends this week and, if there is enough support from health bodies, consumers and restaurants, the FSA will push for a voluntary roll-out in all restaurants from this summer.
Yet some have raised voices of concern. Actually, say some experts, putting calories on menus makes no sense if you want to create a healthy attitude to food.
“Giving people information like this doesn’t change their behaviour,” says Professor Andrew Hill, an eating psychologist. And those helping people with eating disorders worry that it may promote food anxiety.
“There is a real feel of nannying about this,” says Emma Healey, of the Eating Disorders Association, now named Beat. “Calorie-counting is joyless.”
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