How listing calorie counts on menus CAN help beat obesity: Restaurants that do so offer '140 calories fewer per item than those that don't'

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Chain restaurants that voluntarily list calorie counts on their menus, offer customers healthier foods, a new study has revealed.

On average the menus reveal almost 140 fewer calories per item, than in those establishments that do not post the information, researchers found.

The findings from Johns Hopkins University come as all American chain restaurants with more than 20 outlets, and many other businesses that serve food, including ice cream shops and movie theatres, will be required to post calories on their menus, beginning in December 2016.

The move, experts say, has the potential to dramatically reduce obesity levels across the US. 

Calorie labelling, required as part of the Affordable Care Act, was put in place with the goal of steering people towards lower calorie choices, which could, in turn, help Americans eat healthier diets. 

Chain restaurants like McDonalds, which began listing calories on their menus in 2012, offer customer lower-calorie options when compared with those restaurants that do not offer the information, a study has found

While the requirements do not come into effect for another year, five of the 66 largest US restaurant chains have already introduced voluntary calories counts on menus in all their outlets.

Panera and Jamba Juice have done so since 2010, McDonald's for the last three years, Chick-fil-A and Starbucks since 2013.

Julia Wolfson, study co-author, said: 'The menu items in restaurants with voluntary labelling have fewer average calories than restaurants without labelling.

'If other chain restaurants follow this same trend once mandatory menu labelling goes into effect, it could significantly improve the restaurant environment for consumers.

'This could get consumers to eat healthier without having to change their behaviour, something that is a very difficult thing to do and sustain.' 

To arrive at their conclusions, Ms Wolfson and her colleagues analysed data from 2012 to 2014 in MenuStat, a data set of menu items at 66 of the 100 largest US chain restaurants, based on sales.

On average the menus reveal almost 140 fewer calories per item, than in those establishments that do not post the information, researchers found

MenuStat was developed and is maintained by the New York Department of Public Health and Hygiene. 

Overall, researchers found chains with voluntary labelling averaged nearly 140 fewer calories per item than those that do not post the calorie counts on menus.

Much of that difference is attributed to lower-calorie food rather than beverages, the authors note.

In 2012, the average item at the restaurants posting their calories on their menus contained 260 calories, while the average was 399 calories at those that didn't post calorie counts. 

In 2014, the average was 263 at those with voluntary labeling and 402 at those without.

The researchers also found similar results when they compared restaurants with voluntary labeling to competitors with similar menu offerings that did not have menu labeling; for example, Chick-fil-A to other chicken restaurants, or McDonald's to other burger restaurants.

Chains with voluntary menu labeling introduced approximately twice as many new items in 2013 and one-third more new items in 2014 as compared to the other chains, the researchers found.

This may reflect increasing consumer demand for healthier items in response to the transparency introduced by labelling, they said.

It isn't clear, however, from this study whether the chains with calorie counts on their menus were already serving lower-calorie foods before they decided to go public with their calorie counts, which could have incentivised them to voluntarily share the information, whether calorie counts were lowered in anticipation of the move or whether these chains just happened to have lower calorie counts all along.

American chain restaurants with more than 20 outlets, and many other businesses that serve food, including ice cream shops and movie theatres, will be required to post calories on their menus, beginning in December 2016. Starbucks began to do so in 2013

Research has shown that consumers significantly underestimate the number of calories in the food they eat and may be surprised by how many calories certain items contain. 

Yet evidence suggests, Ms Wolfson said, that few consumers actually notice calories listed on menus and that menu labelling seems to have little effect on consumer choices in restaurants.

'The biggest impact from mandatory menu labeling may come from restaurants decreasing the calories in their menu items rather than expecting consumers to notice the calorie information and, subsequently, order different menu items.' she said.

'Given how often Americans eat in restaurants, if more chain restaurants decrease calories on their menus to a level that we are seeing in restaurants that already label, this has the potential to reduce population-level obesity.'