Calories on menus ‘may not be helpful’ in the fight against obesity | the health

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A Big Mac has 508. Chicken Katsu at Wagamama has 1089. And a large mixed grill with chips at Witherspoon has 2052. But will knowing how many calories are in a restaurant meal make a difference in the UK obesity epidemic?

From April, all cafes and restaurants operated by companies with more than 250 employees will be required to include the number of calories for each item on their menus. The government hopes this will encourage people to make healthier choices and push restaurants to offer healthier options.

But several of the UK’s biggest chains have told the Observer they are not changing their menus as a result of the new regulations, and obesity campaigners say the measure is unlikely to have any effect.

Stuart Flint, associate professor of obesity psychology at the University of Leeds and director of Obesity UK, which supports people who are overweight, said it was not clear who the new rules would help with.

“It might not be useful,” he said. “We need to understand how people really deal with this. Does that mean that people are only looking at calories? A bar of chocolate is less than a balanced meal, but we don’t want people to eat a bar of chocolate and skip the meal. It’s not always about reducing the amount we eat.” “.

Greg Wallace, presenter of MasterChef and founder of weight-loss website ShowMe.Fit, is more optimistic that it can make a difference. “Any information or understanding of the calorie content of our food — whether on takeaway menus or in restaurants — is a great idea,” he said. “What we can measure, we can manage — and this is another step toward enabling people to make more educated choices.”

The Observer has polled companies representing more than 20 of the UK’s largest restaurants and fast food outlets to see if they are making changes as a result of the new regulations.

Everyone said they didn’t reformulate their menus to take the rules into account and actually offer a range of healthy options. Many already post their calorie counts either on menus or on their websites, and most said they’ve reformulated their menus to reduce fat, salt, and sugar for several years.

McDonald’s said it will adapt its menu to provide specific calorie information for toppings, such as sliced ​​cheese on burgers, and has already reformulated its products. “Ninety percent of our staple foods and drinks menu [is] A spokesperson said 500 calories or less in the UK.

KFC’s head of food and quality, Jo Tivers, said the chain was the first in its segment to put calories on menu plates. “This year marks four years since we committed to eliminating 20% ​​of calories per serving by 2025.”

Pizza Express, Wagamama and Nando’s said they have already posted calorie information on their websites and will start printing the information on their menus in April. Nando’s said the April deadline “wasn’t a huge milestone for us because we’ve always tried to be transparent about our calorie information.”

Wetherspoon said it has included calorie information on the menus since 2012 and will not modify it. A spokesperson said the pub chain wanted customers to be able to make informed decisions and was “in no way preaching to customers – simply providing them with information that wasn’t available in other pubs”.

However, none of the chains that actually put calories in their menus said they measured whether they had any effect on customer behavior.

Masterchef presenter Greg Wallace welcomed the marking on the menu, saying it would allow people to make more informed choices. Photo: Yui Mok/PA

Calorie ratings in the United States took effect in 2018, and a study last year of 59 restaurant chains found that there was no change in the average number of calories on menus. But new dishes introduced after 2018 were lower in calories on average.

Flint said things like fast-food ads, a lack of green space to exercise, and the stigma attached to obesity are all just as important. Flint compared the restaurant rating to the Soft Drink Industry (SDIL) fee, introduced in 2018, which taxes sugary soft drinks at 24p per liter. Introduced in the hope that customers would buy less and manufacturers would reduce the amount of sugar in the drinks, a study by the Cambridge Center for Diet and Activity Research found that it led to an average reduction of about 30 grams of sugar per household. In the week.

“But who is consuming less sugar?” Flint said. There is no data to suggest that obese children, or even people who are obese, consume less sugar.

“The truth is that we have had 14 policies over the last 20 years related to obesity, and it hasn’t decreased, it has increased. The reason is that most of those focus on individual change.” Flint said.

“Obesity is very complex. If it was as simple as eating less or more, people would not gain as much weight as we currently do, and people would be able to lose weight more easily.”

The government estimates that 63% of adults in the UK are at an increased risk of developing serious illness and becoming seriously ill with Covid as a result of being overweight. A Public Health England survey found that nearly 80% of respondents support calorie categorization, and that eating out can account for up to a quarter of an adult’s energy intake, according to a study by the National Center for Social Research.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “Obesity is one of the most important health challenges we face. Clear food labeling plays an important role in helping people make healthy choices for themselves and their families, and we have consulted extensively with a wide range of experts on these proposals.” .

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