HealthTree Blog

So if you’ve been watching your caloric intake, you may be pleased to know that soon chain restaurants will begin to have calorie information for everything on their menu! Why? Because it’s part of the new health care bill.

To promote healthy eating and better decision making among Americans, the government wants calorie counts on all items on menus in the United States. They feel that this will promote weight loss and decrease the increasing obesity rates in the United States.

Do You Really Want to Know?

When you go out to eat, you already know that what you’re about to consume isn’t the most healthy. Unless you are weight conscious and go on a mission to pick something you know is low in calories and fat. So having this information may not make a difference to some people. However, other people may actually be offended by it and become enraged when they have to face what they are really about to consume.

The other side is that many people are completely unaware of how many calories they consume from a meal at their favorite restaurant. They would be shocked to see that their seemingly healthy looking salad is really 1,400 calories. Or the simple little dessert they usually eat is just as many calories as what a regular meal should be.

Will it Affect You?

So if you start to see calorie counts on your menus (as many places already do in NYC), will it change the way you eat? Personally, I’ve been counting calories and look on the Internet for information about what I am about it eat anyway. However, that brings me to another point, researching calorie amounts on the Internet is my choice, but having calorie information on menus takes that choice away from people. It doesn’t seem quite fair. It also makes me wonder how much difference it will make and how many people will actually consider it or just turn a blind eye to it and order whatever their stomach’s desire.

Photo: dave_mcmt