Big brother is watching your coffee cake
Following an April federal court ruling affirming the legality of forcing New York City restaurants to post calorie information, the calorie counts of entrees and appetizers in a wide variety of restaurants are popping up.
In some cases, it's been a distinctly ugly surprise.
I have an unfortunate sugar jones that I give into from time to time (that means more often than I should), but seeing that a piece of coffee cake packs a 400-calorie punch has given me incentive to rethink my craving more than once. Similarly, my SO is fond of a bread basket option at a restaurant we go to for brunch every now and again. Last time we went, we were both aghast to discover that just the bread in the bread basket adds up to a whopping 1100 calories.
1100 calories! For bread! Gaaah.
For the first time since we started going to that restaurant for brunch, we passed over the bread basket altogether and instead ordered a little 400-calorie side plate of bread that we shared. It gave us a taste of what my SO really loves, but at a much less devastating impact on our waistlines.
The increased availability of information is clearly influencing our choices at the moment, hopefully in a way that will benefit our long-term health. If this is the impact on just two people, I wonder what the macro effect is going to be. Will we start seeing an overall reduction in obesity in New York City and a corresponding decline in public health spending related to obesity treatment and prevention? Alternatively, will the shock value soon wear off as people get used to seeing the information posted and stop internalizing it?
I tend to think that the impact will be short-term at best, largely because making nutritional decisions on the basis of calorie count alone is a short-term approach to losing weight. In order to be effective over the long term, I think moderating calorie intake needs to be combined with increased exercise and focus on getting the most bang for the calorie buck - in other words, eating based on achieving high nutrient value for a relatively low number of calories. In addition, making choices based on guilt over calorie count is likely to trigger feelings of deprivation after a while. For most people, feeling deprived has a similar impact on both budgets and diets: the plan runs off the rails rather quickly.
I get the impression that local government feels that the impact of this new law will be substantial in terms of reducing obesity and the many costs that come with it in terms of public health care. While I think a more informed consumer generally makes better decisions (and thus, I'm in favor of the law despite my reservations about its effectiveness), I can't see the short term impact being more than marginal, and I think the long term impact will be essentially nonexistent.
I hope I'm wrong. What do you think?
4 retorts. What say you?
I highly recommend that you and your readers go read this post over at Shapely Prose. A few highlights - fat is not an indicator of health, fat people do not cost more in health care, and human bodies are much more complicated than a simple 'calories in calories out' equation can express.
"and human bodies are much more complicated than a simple 'calories in calories out' equation can express."
That's what the FA girls love to say. Unfortunately the Laws of Thermodynamics apply to everyone and everything and in the end it is just that simple, even if these girls don't believe it and think they can back it up with bogus "facts" from junkfoodscience, a blog paid by major junk food producers.
You know why fat people cost less in health care? Because they die earlier. Far earlier. 350+ pounds usually puts you into less than 50 years on this earth.
Sigh.
I'm not going to get into an argument about weight, okay? If other people want to duke it out, be my guest.
Personally, I think fat-bashing is wrong. At the same time, I don't believe for a minute that excess weight is unrelated to a variety of health issues, including Type II diabetes. As far as the impact of weight on health care spending on obesity related causes is concerned, I referred to these national CDC stats and this New York City-specific CDC studyas input. Judge the merits of these sources for yourself.
OK, I'm one of those fitness junkies and i just want to share. I think that when it comes to the size of our waistlines, what we eat is EVERYTHING. I ran six miles yesterday morning and burned a half of the calories in that breadbasket. better to skip the breadbasket and the run, say I . I think fat bashing is wrong and I wish that they would publish calorie info for EvERYTHing, everywhere. People have the right to control their health- or make that choice, anyway. I agree that fat bashing is evil, though, and that there is nothing wrong with being overweight. a recent study shows that people with a BMI slightly over what we have long deemed the "normal range" (for NO REASON!) lead longer, healthier lives.
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