Calories on the menu - just why?

[Figmentofmyimagination]

Visited pizza express last night to catch up with a girlfriend - first visit since pre pandemic. Ordered my favourite fiorentina pizza with spinach and egg but my enjoyment was somewhat diminished by reading the 950 calorie count on the menu. I understand that this is the law now. Who decided that this is a good idea? Absolutely crazy.

there is still an "obesity crisis" ... so how will adding them to menus help this?

Having them on food packets eventually led to manufacturers reducing portion sizes. Having them on menus will similarly encourage restaurants to reduce poetion sizes or have healthier options available. Some restaurant already do this - e.g. Pizza Express have their Legera pizzas which have salad in the middle and are less than 500 calories. Hopefully the likes of Hungry Horse will follow suit. In the meantime, having calories on menus is helpful to people who do want to make conscious choices.

"You can be perfectly healthy while 'overweight'"

Being overweight is itself a health problem.

Luma yes that’s just me - but I know many others find calories useful

There’s not much I can eat in most cafes and I know what to order in restaurants if I’m sticking to it

But I see the benefit generally even if it’s not about calories for me

"it appears you have been able to control your weight all these years without having calories on menus"

I eat at quite a few places where the calories are already on the menu.
For the rest, I have to guess, but I'd rather know. I often choose the soup hoping that's a healthy choice, but I don't know what they put into them - might be laden with butter and cream.

" People die from anorexia"

I'm sorry for them, but it's a serious mental illness that affects a minority of the population. Eating too much is a much bigger public health problem.

" others are trapped in diet culture their whole lives"

If by 'trapped in diet culture' you mean they watch their weight and have to be aware of calories I don't think we're going to agree about it.

No it won’t. The Pizza Express pizza is a rip off. £££ for a hole. People won’t pay £££ for less. They were struggling even before the pandemic.

USA have had this for years. Doesn’t seem to have impacted their portion sizes and obesity levels are still rocketing.

Whilst obesity in children needs to be tackled, anorexia is a lot more dangerous.

This is true when talking about an individual child, but on a national level, obesity is far and away the more common and more deadly problem. Public health bodies and regulations should be in the business of improving the health of the general public, and that does unfortunately mean catering for the majority.

"USA have had this for years. Doesn’t seem to have impacted their portion sizes and obesity levels are still rocketing."

As I mentioned before, the USA has a lot of other problems that cause their obesity crisis.

It suits me. I keep my eye on my weight (5’4’’ size 10/12) as I’m now a bit older it gets more difficult to get the extra pounds off, so I like to watch what I eat. Definitely not trapped in any diet culture, just like keeping a healthy weight.

I would much rather that the labelling was around the amount of sugar contained in a meal. Counting calories is technically irrelevant, as all calories are not equal. Sugar is the real one to watch, for so many reasons.

We ordered some fish and chips on Just Eat last week and the calories are now on there. I just ordered quickly before I got chance to see them.

Calories have been on food packets for years and haven't made a difference to "the obestiy crisis".

They help me and many others control our weight.

They might be helpful to you, but I expect you'd still be controlling your weight anyway. Putting calories on restaurant food might make it easier (only when eating out) for those who calorie count already. It's not going to persuade other people to calorie count though, just as calories on food packets hasn't, which is why imo it's unlikely to have any effect on obesity levels. It's basically preaching to the converted.

@Gwenhwyfar

"You can be perfectly healthy while 'overweight'"

Being overweight is itself a health problem.

I guess we disagree on that. I know a lot of people who are classed as overweight by BMI standards yet lead healthier lifestyles and have better general health than people who aren't, so my opinion on that won't change

@Fairislefandango

Calories have been on food packets for years and haven't made a difference to "the obestiy crisis".

They help me and many others control our weight.

They might be helpful to you, but I expect you'd still be controlling your weight anyway. Putting calories on restaurant food might make it easier (only when eating out) for those who calorie count already. It's not going to persuade other people to calorie count though, just as calories on food packets hasn't, which is why imo it's unlikely to have any effect on obesity levels. It's basically preaching to the converted.

What are you basing this on?

This link outlines benefits for packs www.obesityactionscotland.org/media/1459/obesity__labelling_b-30.pdf

BMI standards work as a rough guide. People always drag out the rugby player example to show that you can be healthy and heavy but for most people who aren't some unusual exception, it works well enough.

@Hont1986

Whilst obesity in children needs to be tackled, anorexia is a lot more dangerous.

This is true when talking about an individual child, but on a national level, obesity is far and away the more common and more deadly problem. Public health bodies and regulations should be in the business of improving the health of the general public, and that does unfortunately mean catering for the majority.

Actually it depends on lots of factors including weight distribution. For a woman being morbidly obese (bmi over 40) only takes about 5 years off life expectancy. Some studies have shown marginally overweight people have the highest life expectancy. The government aren’t actually worried about people dying prematurely they’re worried about treatment cost. Which of course affects us all

For a woman being morbidly obese (bmi over 40) only takes about 5 years off life expectancy

And for a man it 'only' takes about 20 years off.

Other than life expectancy another issue is how much weight related issues costs the NHS

‘Diabetes, the report highlights the large percentage (79%) of NHS diabetes spending that goes on complications – many of which are preventable.’

www.diabetes.org.uk/about_us/news_landing_page/nhs-spending-on-diabetes-to-reach-169-billion-by-2035

Obviously it’s like trying to change the direction of a tanker and not easy to reverse but behaviour policy is needed

0.2% of Year 6 girls are anorexic.
20% of Year 6 girls are obese.

It's literally 100x.

@Hont1986

For a woman being morbidly obese (bmi over 40) only takes about 5 years off life expectancy

And for a man it 'only' takes about 20 years off.

Rather than cherry pick read the whole paragraph. In response to the comparison with anorexia and life years lost from that

What paragraph?

@Hont1986

0.2% of Year 6 girls are anorexic. 20% of Year 6 girls are obese.

It's literally 100x.

And? Meaningless really. Year 6 is prior to when most eating disorders really set in. And they’re very poorly diagnosed. And what do you mean overweight? I usually defend BMI but actually in puberty it’s quite a poor measure. Puberty is getting earlier and the charts don’t account for that. 11 year olds can have children’s bodies or adult women bodies and BMI does not account for that.

The statistics are the same or worse for older age groups.

0.3% of girls/women aged 11-34 are anorexic.
29% of adult women are obese (couldn't find the figure for the 11-34 age range specifically).

Its still something like two orders of magnitude greater.

@PurpleDaisies

Kids shouldn’t be seeing calories. That’s why it’s shocking.

Why on earth not? It's this weird view that calories are bad and ignorance is much better that leads to lots of people having a really distorted and disordered attitude to eating. EDs aside as they are complex and calorie counting is more a symptom rather than cause; what is the issue with a child learning about calories in conjunction with other aspects of nutrition? If normalised it'd just become day to day, no big deal. The fact is that human bodies don't need an abundance of food just because it tastes nice or whatever, that doesn't change whether you hide calories and pretend they don't exist or not, and it's not wonder so many go on to be overweight if we don't give them the tools when growing up to be able to make informed decisions about food.

You’re comfortable with eleven year olds making choices in restaurants based on calorie counting? I’m certainly not.

It’s been explained why counting calories is so dangerous for children and teenagers. Don’t see the gov running to print calories on school dinners for kids to see. Kids read from quite a young age, read menus and choose their food. They should not be counting calories or trying to restrict. They should be learning about a healthy lifestyle and just focusing on having a balanced daily intake of food.