Providing more nutritional information is widely regarded as a sensible way to help improve American eating habits, but the intended impact might often be lost among the younger set.
As reported by U.S. News & World Report, a new study in the International Journal of Obesity found that calorie labels at fast-food restaurants had no effect on what kids eat. And that was the case when parents picked their children’s meals as well as when the children chose for themselves.
The study, carried out by New York University researchers, looked at the eating choices for 349 children ages 1 to 17 from low-income neighborhoods in New York City and, for comparison, Newark. The researchers reviewed the food selections made both before and after posting calorie counts became mandatory in New York City in 2008.
The finding: the nutritional posts had no impact. That led the researchers to conclude that taste and marketing are the determining factors in kids’ eating decisions.
“Labeling is not going to be enough to influence obesity in a large-scale way,” Brian Elbel, one of the study’s authors, told WebMD. “Numbers can’t compete with Ronald McDonald.”
Researchers who didn’t participate in the study emphasized that further efforts must be made to educate children and their parents about the impact of their dietary decisions.
“Part of the problem is that there is no real education about what these calorie levels mean,” said Kelly Sinclair, a dietitian with Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. “If they don’t know how many calories they are supposed to have, how can calorie labeling guide them to a different choice?”
Hope that nutrition labels can make a difference also was voiced by Dr. Pooja Tandon, a University of Washington pediatrician who published a study last year that found that parents armed with calorie information ordered about 100 fewer calories per meal for their 3- to 6-year-olds. She said a follow-up study is needed to determine if, as consumers repeatedly see calorie information, their behavior changes over time.
