Hey, You! Eat Better

As a follow-up to yesterday's post about the effects of food caloric labeling at food chains, I thought a study published Pediatrics — and reported on Eat, Drink and Be — raised a fascination question.

When given nutritional information, parents chose the same foods for themselves but lower-calorie foods for their children. On average, parents who had the nutritional information in hand chose meals with 100 fewer calories for their children — enough to add up, over time, to significant differences in weight.

The question is, why just the kids' food? Were the parents already making good choices for themselves? Are kid-friendly foods somehow more prone to hidden calories (which seems hard to believe)? Or was it simply easier for the adult subjects to cut tasty but nutritionally disastrous items from somebody else's diet?

It's fascinating that researchers got this result even when the tasty foods weren't in sight: The study was conducted as a hypothetical exercise, not at an actual restaurant, and the researchers were careful to note that our choices vary depending on social and other stimuli.

Whatever the reason, the evidence is mounting that nutritional labeling has some effect on consumer behavior. Yet only about half of the largest chains provide the information on site.

Photo credit: Christina Kennedy