Niki Bezzant: Will calorie labels on restaurant menus reduce obesity?

Transparency from food outlets about what goes into some of our favourite foods would be a good thing. Photo / 123RF

The UK is once again showing us the way when it comes to solving the problem of childhood obesity. Last week its government announced its strategy to halve childhood obesity by 2030.

The UK has similar rates of child obesity as New Zealand, where one in eight of our kids is obese, and a further 21 per cent overweight.

The fact the UK has set a target – halving obesity – sounds obvious, but it's a bit revolutionary. We have no such target here.

You could make a good case that if you don't know what you're aiming for, there's no way of knowing how you'll achieve it. Let's hope this might be something the Government will consider soon.

As well as stopping the sale of energy drinks to kids, an end to unhealthy products at supermarket checkouts and a 9pm watershed on junk food advertising - one of the more interesting UK measures being proposed - is mandatory calorie labels on restaurant menus.

The thinking is that as more meals are eaten outside the home, it can be difficult for us to know how much energy we're consuming in those settings.

Research tends to show we are terrible at estimating calories in food, very often underestimating.

Perhaps, the theory goes, knowing what's in a menu item might give us pause, or nudge us in the direction of a healthier choice. And it may nudge restaurants into offering healthier items.

Calorie labelling has been in place in some US states for a while, and there has been some research into its effect. It's fair to say the evidence calorie labelling works is mixed.

Some studies have found a small but significant drop in the total calories of the meals ordered when this information is made available.

Other studies have found no effect at all. And there's no research into the bigger picture – for example, how people eat for the rest of their day. There's even speculation that people may use the calorie information to help them order more calories, so they get better value for money from their restaurant picks.

Despite that, a bit more transparency from food outlets, creating awareness of the impact of some of the food we like, would probably be a good thing. Some of our favourite takeaways, for example, are nightmares of energy, salt and unhealthy fat.

Right now, the only food outlets that offer nutritional information are the fast food chains, and that's not on menus.

If you can be bothered looking, it's on their websites, usually buried behind a tiny link. If you can find that, you'll get a chart that's super hard to read with tiny print, and if you want info on "combos" – say burger, fries and a drink, as typically sold, and which could feasibly have a day's worth of calories – you'll have to do the sums yourself.

It's hard not to draw the conclusion that fast food outlets don't really want us thinking about what's in their food.

• Niki Bezzant is editor-at-large for Healthy Food Guide www.healthyfood.co.nz