If You Post It: They Will Eat Less

Posted by | August 31, 2011 10:17 | Filed under: Top Stories

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by Stuart Shapiro

The health care costs of obesity are hurting all of us (especially those who are obese).   One of the least intrusive measures to curb overeating is the posting of calorie counts in restaurants.  This practice, most prominently tried in New York, has drawn its share of skeptics.  However, a new study with a particularly sophisticated design has found that upon seeing calorie counts, people reduce the amount they eat:

Do such calorie disclosure laws work? Using data from Starbucks restaurants in New York City both before and after the city passed a law in 2008 requiring chain restaurants to post calorie amounts on menus, Bollinger, Leslie and Sorenson compared caloric intake data from the New York locations with “control” Starbucks stores in Boston and Philadelphia, where calorie posting was not required.
 
They found that with calorie posting in effect, Starbucks customers’ average caloric intake per food transaction decreased by 14%, while their average caloric intake per beverage transaction did not change. Of the reduced calories, 74% resulted from fewer purchases, while 26% stemmed from purchasing lower calorie products.
 
Few people (and I’m not one of them) want to tell people what they can and can’t eat.  Letting people know how much they are eating though, that’s fine by me.  And if it reduces health care costs and prolongs lives, let’s do it.

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Copyright 2011 Liberaland
By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.

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