The TRUTH About Menu Labeling

Food labels have a bit of a controversial history in the U.S. Are they inadequate? Do they need to be updated? Do they even help people make healthier choices? But a new study presented this week at the Obesity Journal Symposium—the first long-term look at calorie labeling—shows that labels actually help prevent weight gain, after all.

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The study examined a group of people who are particularly known for gaining weight: college students. The Scotland-based researchers looked at two separate groups of 120 students eating in a university’s dining hall, one year apart. The first group was only given calorie information about their options for five weeks of the 36-week school year. The second group, the following year, were given clear calorie labels for 30 of the 36 weeks of classes.

The menu plans were not otherwise changed, and like many collegiate dining halls, there were a few options at every meal, which often varied wildly in terms of nutritional value. As you might remember, if you want to eat French fries at every meal in college, no one is stopping you!

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The results were pretty eye-opening: The first group, which had calorie info for a only a brief time, gained a mean of 7.7 pounds in that year. The second group, which had calorie info for almost the entire year, actually lost a third of a pound, on average. The students' odds of weight gain, the researchers concluded, was reduced by 50 percent.

The happy numbers didn’t stop there. Women in the study were the most affected: Those female participants with all the info loaded up 25 percent fewer calories on their tray. And the majority of female and male subjects reported that they used the info to make healthier choices. Even the university caterers were psyched, in interviews, because they didn’t even have to overhaul their menus to make a difference—the relatively cheap change of printing out and displaying calorie info was enough.

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