Calorie Guidelines and Menu Labelling

Source: CBS News, July 19, 2013 CBS News covered a story about a recently published study in the American Journal of Public Health. The study, led by Julie Downs, supplemented menu labeling with calorie intake recommendations and found that people who were given the calorie guidelines ate an average of 49 more calories more than those who did not receive the guidelines. Downs commented that “the bigger issue is that asking people to do math three times a day every day of their lives is a lot,” She also added “because it’s not like we make a decision about what to eat just once. It’s a lot of decisions. And if you add a cognitive [mental] burden on top of that it’s a lot to ask.”