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Eat less: it's the law

I recently read a news report on “Calorie Data to Be Posted at Most Chains” by Stephanie Rosenbloom, which was published in the New York Times in March of this year. The report states that President Obama has signed into US law the requirement that fast-food chains like McDonald’s and KFC will at some time in the future, have to display calorie information on their menus and even on drive-through signs.

In other words, when Americans pick up a menu at any fast-food chain (which has 20 or more outlets nationwide), that menu is going to have to list the calorie content of each item, e.g. Big Mac (500 kcal). This will presumably discourage prospective buyers from purchasing food with a high kilocalorie content and thus stop the population from gaining weight.

Pros and Cons

Kelly Brownlet, the Director of the Rudd Centre for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale, hails this piece of legislation as “an historic development” because in America the public “spend more than half of their food dollars outside the home”. Brownlet believes that if people know how many kilocalories food items contain, they will be shocked into making more sensible purchases (Rosenbloom, 2010).

On the other hand, Sam Kazman, general counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is a free-market advocacy group, slates the new law as a restriction of free enterprise. He points out that if this measure does not make Americans lose weight, then the government will enact even harsher laws and make more demands that could harm free-market enterprise (Rosenbloom, 2010).

My first reaction to this American move to ‘scare’ the public into eating less, was one of approval, but then it struck me that this is just the next step by one of the great Nanny States of the world to stop people taking responsibility for their own actions.

Nanny State laws

Quite a few years ago when visiting the UK, I rushed into a McDonald’s purely because I was in a tearing hurry to have a quick and affordable meal before going to a show. When coffee was served, I could not stop laughing because the coffee cup warned me that the beverage I was going to drink was hot and could burn my mouth. I ask you! On the way to my table I had noticed that there were signs warning customers to take care on the steps and that the floor could be slippery when wet. Surrounded by warning signs, I could only laugh. Surely any person with a brain and common sense would know that coffee is hot (unless you order iced coffee!), that climbing stairs can be dangerous and that a shiny tiled floor is slippery when wet.

It then dawned on me that all these warnings were not displayed because the company in question was concerned about their client’s welfare, but that this was a reaction to spurious law suits brought against them by patrons who sensed a quick buck when they did burn their mouths when sipping scalding coffee, or broke a bone when sliding down the stairs by accident.

This new piece of legislation could just see hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans suing the government for their weight gain!

The problem with Nanny State laws is that they effectively remove responsibility from the public for their actions. It stops people thinking about what they do and prevents them from realising that they are in charge of their own lives. I refuse to believe that the public in America or any other country, will be stopped from buying fast-food that is bursting with calories, just because they see a number next to the items they purchase.

Powerful motivators

Buying food away from home and spending money on high-energy, high-fat food, are driven by a multitude of factors such as convenience, lack of time to prepare food at home, low prices, highly tempting taste, smell and visual appearance, and persuasive advertising.

Anyone who is too rushed or tired to stand in the kitchen preparing food, will opt to buy fast-food. And if that fast-food provides more calories per dollar or Rand than home-cooked food, then who is to blame the buyer for spending his or her money on the most energy-dense food they can obtain.

'Quarter' in SA

In South Africa, we have a fascinating research project (“The Birth to Twenty Study- Bto20"), that has been following the health and lifestyle habits of a group of black children living in the Johannesburg-Soweto area for 17 years. A recent publication (Feeley et al, 2009), which studied fast-food consumption among this group of 17-year-olds, found that these black teenagers are now consuming at least 8 or more fast-food items every week or about one fast-food a day. The most popular item is the so-called "quarter".

A "quarter" consists of “a quarter-loaf of white bread, fried chips, processed cheese, any number of processed meats or sausages, a fried egg and sauces.” (Feeley et al, 2009)

On average more than 95% of the 320 male teenagers and 92.2% of the 335 female teenagers ate more than one fast-food item per week, and more than 50% of the males and 38% of the females ate more than eight fast-food items per week.

Therefore, these young black people are eating high-fat foods including processed cheese, fried eggs and processed meat or sausages nearly every day.

Although the paper by Feeley and her co-authors (2009) did not specifically investigate why our teenagers are eating ‘quarters’ nearly every day, I am confident that this is because it is convenient, cheap and tasty.

Will it make a difference?

While the new legislation in the USA has been put in place for the best possible reasons from a nutritional point of view, I am doubtful if this will make any difference to the buying habits of the modern public. If the South African government made every vendor display the startling energy content of a “quarter and Coke” of nearly 6000 kJ or 1400 kcal, would our hungry teenagers stop buying this ‘lekker’ street food? I don’t think so.

In the final analysis every individual is responsible for his or her own food intake and no amount of legislation is going to make the obesity epidemic go away.

(References: Feeley A et al (2009). Fast-food consumption among 17-year-olds in the Birth to Twenty cohort. SA Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 22(3): 18-123; Rosenbloom, S (2010). Calorie data to be posted at most chains. New York Times, March 23, 2010)

- (Dr IV van Heerden, DietDoc, April 2010)


 

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