Overloading consumers’ brains with nutrition information may not be the way to keep them from overloading their plates.
A new study of McDonald’s patron’s food-purchasing behavior finds that providing information about recommended calorie intake coupled with posted calorie information not only doesn’t reduce calorie intake, there is some evidence that such recommendations may promote purchase of higher-calorie items.
The study, “Supplementing Menu Labeling With Calorie Recommendations to Test for Facilitation Effects,” has been published online in the American Public Health Association’s American Journal of Public Health. The paper’s authors are Julie S. Downs, Jessica Wisdom and George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University, and Brian Wansink of Cornell University. Wansink also is the author of the influential 2006 book, “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More than We Think.”
This new study finds a good deal of mindlessness as well. The stated objective of the tests conducted was to see how food purchasing would be affected by providing information on per-day or per-meal calorie-intake on top of mandated posted calorie information. Data was gathered during lunchtime at two New York City McDonald’s restaurants (one in Manhattan, the other in Brooklyn). Data was gathered before and then again after New York City’s 2008 mandate that restaurants post calorie counts for menu items. On entering the restaurant, customers were handed a slip that showed recommended calories per-day (2,000 for women; 2,400 for men), handed a slip explaining recommended per-meal calories (650 or 800), or given no recommendation information (the control group). As they left, customers returned their slips coupled with their meal receipts.
All of this calorie information did not result in healthier eating. More than half the 1,121 adults involved exceeded the recommended per-meal calorie intake. Women’s meals average 824 calories; men’s averaged 890 calories. About one in three adults purchased meals exceeding 1,000 calories.
Before calories were posted, the entrées diners purchased averaged 334 calories for those who received no recommendations and 369 for those who were given per-day or per-meal intake targets. After menu labeling took effect, both numbers rose rather declined: 348 per entrée for no recommendations; 410 for those receiving recommendations.
So why the increase in calorie intake? The study authors speculate that because “many popular entrées are below the recommended guidelines (e.g., a Big Mac contains 570 calories) [they] may provide a false sense of staying within the calorie allowance, which could license larger purchases and allow consumers to ignore the calorie load of other components of the meal, which would push the meal total beyond the recommended amount.”
Whatever the reason, the inescapable conclusion they draw is that the results “provide little hope that calorie recommendations will salvage the apparent weak or nonexistent effect of menu labeling.”
But rather than concluding that restaurant operators shouldn’t be held responsible for educating consumers about healthy eating, the authors of the study suggest exactly the opposite. Why not “incentivize restaurants and manufacturers to promote high-margin, healthier items,” they ask. As an example, they suggest lowering the price on combo meals that include a diet soft drink or water.
This study seems to conclude that the problem lies not with the information restaurants provide but with consumers unwillingness or inability to use that information wisely. As such, it seems unreasonable to ask restaurants to do more before consumers are required to make improvements.
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Any person that eats at McDonalds and worries about the health benefits/troubles just don't comprehend how bad it's for you.
