Credit Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
One kid-favorite Panera cinnamon crunch bagel: 430 calories. Add a medium low-fat strawberry banana smoothie (260 calories) or even just a lemonade (240 calories), and your 7-year-old is well into his 1,600-calorie budget for the day.
Of course, kids rarely finish what’s on their plates, and it’s unlikely that all of those calories made their way into your child (and more than likely that a few went into your own mouth). But those numbers shouldn’t surprise you if you’re a Panera customer, and if you’re not already familiar with similar calorie counts from other chains, you soon will be. By December of this year, the Food and Drug Administration will require all retail food establishments that are part of a chain with 20 or more locations to post calorie counts on their menus and menu boards.
Many larger chains already meet that requirement, and researchers have been looking at whether the posted calorie counts are changing our behavior. The results have been mixed, but new research published as a working paper with the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that for some subsets of people, the calorie information may be having an impact where it counts: on body mass. Researchers evaluated changes in body mass index (commonly referred to as B.M.I.) from 2003 to 2012 in counties and areas that had mandatory calorie-labeling laws in place, and found “substantial effects in terms of decreased B.M.I. following implementation of such laws” in men and overweight women.
I’ve found that posted calorie counts do change my behavior. I “downsize” when it’s an option, or intentionally consume only part of what I’ve purchased. I’ve also made changes in what I purchase for my children, and I never encourage them to finish it, although it can be galling to throw away half of a $7 Starbucks snack.
But when it comes to evaluating what my children eat (at chain restaurants and everywhere else), I should look beyond calories, says Jessica Shepard, a certified holistic health consultant who has studied nutrition. “Calories are a guideline,” she says, “but we need to think about things like nutritional density and the value our body gets as a whole.” If the low-fat strawberry-banana smoothie at 260 calories is made with yogurt and gets its sugar largely from whole fruits, it has a much different nutritional profile than the 240-calorie lemonade.
If the calorie counts encourage us to be more aware of our choices, that’s a good thing, says Ms. Shepard, as long as we look beyond the number. She suggests encouraging children to make a choice that includes some protein, some fat and some fiber, especially if they need a meal or snack that will fuel them through a busy day.
If children ask about the calories, tell them it’s a way to measure the things we eat, but it’s a measurement with limits. Not only are all calories not created equal, but calorie measurements can be inaccurate. Many of us, particularly mothers with daughters, are concerned that talking about calories can lead to an unhealthy obsession with those numbers. Just as we want to strike a healthy balance in our eating, we want to strike a healthy balance in how much mental energy we give to those choices. We can tell a curious child that calories are just one thing to think about — after all, notes Ms. Shepard, an apple might have more calories than a few Doritos, but we all know the apple gives us something different from the chips.
Evaluating the impact of one societal change on average body mass is both mathematically and statistically challenging and a long-term prospect. This research is preliminary, and has not yet been peer-reviewed, although a smaller study (also still not reviewed) using similar methods reached a similar result. Other research on the question of whether posted calorie counts change behavior has been mixed, with some behavior observation studies finding that consumers choose to consume fewer calories overall when they notice calorie counts, and others finding no overall change in consumption in restaurants that posted the information compared to those that did not.
If we use calorie counts on menus as a reminder to think more about what we are eating and what we’re feeding our children, they can have a positive impact on those meals, whether they ultimately have a negative affect on our national waistline.
Do calorie counts on menus affect what you eat when they’re posted, and do they affect what you purchase for your children? How do you talk to your children about those numbers?
Read more about talking with children about calories, food choices and weight on Motherlode: The Mom Who Put Her 7-Year-Old on a Diet Speaks Out; Ending the “Friendly” Fat Talk ; Talking to a Child Who Is Overweight, but Unaware and I Have No Idea How Many Calories Are in My Grandmother’s Gefilte Fish.
