Subscribe to the RSS feed.HB 2726: Informed choices are healthier choices.
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CHP | Posted on: April 21st, 2009
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Before The Legislature •
Policies and Laws •
Nutrition •
Public Health
This bill creates rules for chain restaurants that make nutritional information, including calorie counts, visible and easily available. It would require chain restaurants with more than 15 outlets nationwide to make certain nutritional information regarding menu items, including calorie counts, available to customers by January 2010.
Giving customers the data they need to make healthy choices creates an environment that supports good health and well-being. Reducing obesity is a vital step toward lowering health care costs and improving the public’s health. Freedom of choice and freedom of information are basic rights that should be available to all Oregonians.
Statistics and perspectives that support this view:
• Obesity costs Oregon at least $781 million per year in direct medical expenses - over $1 billion including indirect costs such as lost productivity. We can’t afford not to do something.
• Menus, particularly at chain restaurants, are misleading and studies show over and over that regardless of education or income level, people can not accurately tell which items are lowest in calories, meaning they choose items they think are healthier but they’re not.
• Menu labeling helps people consume fewer calories: A study about New York City’s experience with menu labeling found that customers who used the posted calorie info ordered an average of 99 fewer calories than other patrons. That savings alone can add up to about 10 pounds per year, without even trying!
• As of 2007, 26% of Oregon 8th graders were overweight or obese. Research has shown that four out of five of these children will become overweight or obese adults. The time to stop the spread of obesity is when kids are young, and giving parents immediate calorie info will help them do just that.
• Over a recent seven year period, one-third of the increase in Oregon’s health expenditures could be attributed to rising obesity prevalence.
• Multnomah County, California, Seattle, and New York City are some of the most recent governments that have enacted menu labeling laws, and because these influential areas have already passed these laws, it leaves just five chains statewide that would have do what they aren’t already doing.
What the public thinks:
• According to the Oregon Nutrition Policy Alliance, more than two-thirds of Oregonians want such nutrition information on the menus.
• In a study in New York City, 75 percent of diners reported that nutrition information on menus changed the way they order and 90 percent of that group chose lower calorie options.
• Even Republicans are in support of menu labeling: in a 2007 poll of Californians, 78 percent of registered Republicans supported calorie counts on chain restaurant menus at the point of purchase.
Read more about it in stories and comments on our blog, The Conversation.
Is menu labeling going statewide?
Response to Oregonian editorial.
Click here to find out who your state legislators are.
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I think that posting calories is a great idea, one that people would really like if it ever happened. There’s a reason that those “Eat This, Not That” books are so popular. It’s because people honestly don’t know how many calories are in the food they’re ordering. It’s not a good argument to say, Oh, people who go to fast food places know they’re eating junk. There are healthier choices at nearly every restaurant, and giving people the calorie information just helps them find those options.