The average American eats approximately 4.2 meals out of the house each week. According to a National Restaurant Association Report this has risen in the recent years, from 3.7 meals per person to this extreme new high (Ebbin 1). Although the number of people that eat out and the amount of money that is spent out to eat has gone up, the nutritional information on items has not improved. In 1990 the National Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) was passed which forced store bought packaged items to have nutritional labeling. Now that many more people are eating out of the house, it has become more critical that people are informed about what they are eating. The obesity rate has gone up in the United States and may be attributed to the ignorance of what the population is eating. Many are unaware of how much calories, sodium, and cholesterol are in the food items that they are consuming. The first step to change is by educating others. Let’s educate our population about what they are eating and how these foods influence our health by labeling not only the food we eat inside our homes, but also the foods we consume when eating out is most convenient.
It has been almost 20 years since the NLEA was passed which made it required that all nutrition facts be labeled on in-store food items according to the FDA (Kurtzweil 5). Since then there have been slight improvements in the system which have required restaurants to make some changes. Improvements to the NLEA began in January of 1993 by including restaurants in the National Labeling and Education Act. Although this was improvement, according to the FDA the menus were exempt from this policy. By 1996 it was still not settled on how the restaurants were to follow these regulations. It was decided by August that the restaurants must provide nutritional information for menu items and that health claims must be regulated (Kurtzweil 5). Although the restaurants were required to provide the information, it is still not mandatory in most states to put this information directly on the menu. In fact by 2003 The Center for Science in the Public Interest was claiming that 2/3 of major restaurants were without nutritional information and the ones that did only had “hard to find, hard to read posters or brochures, or inconvenient websites”(Put 2). As of recently it has been passed in California, New York City and Seattle that calorie counts must be provided on menus and menu boards which will hopefully only push other states do to the same, if not more (California 1). Now, more than ever, it has become crucial that nutritional labeling be directly on menus, providing consumers with more information about what they are eating.
The only questioned posed is would this help our country and its obesity crisis. It has been stated by Chancey in the QSR magazine that The Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) has found that the adult obesity rate has risen in 37 states in the past year and not a single state lowered their obesity rate (Chancey 1). Passing a bill to include Nutritional information could do no harm to the health of our population; in fact it could only help this ever-expanding obesity rate. Even Dr. Hendrich states with enthusiasm, “I can’t see any downside to the addition” (hendrich 1). Many already want healthier options but are just unaware of how to find these options available to them. Kurtzweil, a reporter for the FDA, says that more than half of people over the age of 35 and 2 out 5 18 to 34 year olds look for healthier items on menu’s when eating out (Kurtzweil). This would be made much easier if the exact amount of calories and other beneficial information were listed directly on the menu. This may lead to an increase in awareness and an increase in the amount of people that look for these nutritional substitutes when dining out. In fact labeling in stores has been studied and is claimed to help detour people from buying foods that may not be as healthy. Barbra Bruemmer, an epidemiologist in grocery stores claims that 80% of people state that they use/look at the labels on food and 50% of people say that they may put something down after reading the label (Hochberg 3). On top of this there are many who need the nutritional facts due to health concerns that have already been labeled a problem. Such as diabetes and high cholesterol it is important for these people to be provided the information necessary for them to stay healthy. This would include information such as salt content, calorie content and even cholesterol content. Lori Brown states “It’s like Russian roulette, because you don’t know exactly how much is in each dish, how much fat grams, how many carbs for him” this makes it impossible to decide what to eat when dining out (Hochberg 1).
It is evident that life styles in the United States have changed drastically. People spend more time on the go, on the computer, running kids around, and eating out with increased portion sizes. In fact according to the National Restaurant Association, Americans spent 44% of their food dollars outside of the house in 1996 which was up from 1955 by 25% (Kurtzweil 1). Not only has the amount of money spent out to eat increased the amount of food served has increased as well. Levi from the QSR magazine supports the labeling due to the fact that “the No. 1 offender in the food industry is large portion sizes” (Chancey 1). Dr. Hendrich also agrees that knowing this information could help judge how much of the meal to actually consume. For these reason, it is necessary that all menus have their information posted directly on the menu. It is inconvenient to have to go online or ask for a special pamphlet with the nutritional facts on them. We live in a world of convenience, why not make it convenient to be healthy?
If you would like to support this cause by helping pass the bill that will make restaurants put nutritional facts on their menus there are many things that you can do. First of all you can join support groups and sign petitions. One of the best ways to get involved and to influence the outcome of this bill is to right to your senator. There are many websites that give you advice on how to right to your senator about the issue including http://takeaction.cspinet.org/cspi/alert-description.html?alert_id=2122797. This campaign was started in 2003 and will give you advice on what to say in a letter to your governor and how to go about doing so.
The smart idea would be to put nutrition facts on menus in restaurants. This would make it much more convenient for people to be health aware and may detour people from eating things that may not be as healthy or beneficial as another option that may be on the menu. It may also help with people that have diseases that have been diagnosed, or maybe even help to prevent diseases that could be diagnosed. It would benefit mothers in that it would make it much easier for them to decide what to feed their children. If they realize that a Mc Donalds milk shake has more calories than a big mac or than 2 egg mc muffins they may think twice about allowing their child to eat the whole thing. Go to the website listed above, write to your senator, and let’s make our country aware of what they are eating in the most convenient way possible.
