With busy lifestyles taking over our lives, there has been a growing trend in developed countries to eat outside the home. As a result, there has been a huge rise in chronic conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes, to name a few. In Canada alone, 1 in 4 adults and 1 in 10 children have clinical obesity. Thus, in an attempt to promote healthy living, the provincial government of Ontario passed the Healthy Menu Choices Act, 2015 on January 1, 2017. This new law requires fast food chains with more than 20 locations to clearly display the number of calories of every food item on their menu. The impact of this law hasn’t been measured as of yet, but it is important to ask: how exactly will menu labelling address chronic health conditions?
As consumers, we don’t realize the type- or amount of- substances that we put into our bodies on a daily basis. Yes, you may be eating “an apple a day to keep the doctor away,” but are you aware of the chemicals that were used to help it grow? Do you know what preservatives were used to maintain the apple’s freshness as it travelled from the farm to your kitchen? In the same manner, have you ever thought about what’s really going on behind the scenes of the fast food you eat? We know that it’s unhealthy, yet we keep returning to it time and time again. Our ignorance to how our food is being made is a major reason why fast food has taken such a huge toll on our society’s health and wellbeing.
Menu labelling raises public awareness about the lack of nutrition present in fast-food chain items. Awareness is often considered to be the first step towards change, so adding nutritional information such as caloric intake or sodium levels will at least give consumers the opportunity to think twice before putting certain foods into their bodies. For instance, despite already knowing that those fries from McDonald’s have way too much salt, realizing that the actual amount is- at minimum, 180 mg– gives consumers a reality check about the contents of these tasty items.
Beyond awareness, menu labelling can also encourage consumers to make healthier choices. Even though we know for a fact that what we’re eating in fast-food restaurants isn’t exactly beneficial for us, menu labelling can prompt us to order items that will do the least damage to our bodies. Even when we opt for the “healthier meal”, it still ends up being one of the more calorie-rich options. Therefore, menu labelling can lead to a gradual shift in perspective regarding how we can make informed food choices.
In a study titled “Restaurant menu labelling: Is it worth adding sodium to the label?”, 3080 Canadian consumers completed an online survey where they had to select what they would typically order from four mock-restaurant menus. Overall, the study found that when sodium information was provided on restaurant menus, consumers ordered meals with much less sodium than consumers who only saw caloric information. This revealed that menu labelling was more likely to influence consumers’ choices when the nutritional content was more surprising than expected.
Another study conducted by researchers from the University of Waterloo examined how prominent displays of nutritional information affected food consumption. In this study, nutritional information was provided through either digital menu boards or paper signs placed throughout a cafeteria. Participants were then invited to participate in a survey about nutrition, advertising, and the orders they placed at either location.
The researchers found that the mode of advertising greatly influenced food consumption. For instance, the more prominent digital menu included logos on items that met the developed nutritional standards, and in the same location, a poster saying “Healthier Menu” was placed at the entrance of the area with healthy food items. In this way, not only are consumers exposed to the nutritional information from the moment they enter, but this continued exposure positively influences their food choices. This advertising tactic shows that the more you see something, the more you want it; an idea that can certainly be applied to menu labelling strategies as well.
So, to answer the question posed at the beginning: menu labelling won’t exactly solve the problem of obesity or heart disease, but it can affect our mentalities, namely prompting us to believe that our health should be taken seriously. As we are exposed to the scary reality of our food through techniques such as menu labelling, we automatically become more conscious of the food we’re consuming. This consciousness can be further expanded through taxing potentially dangerous foods if they are overeaten, clear and obvious labelling of healthy and unhealthy foods on packaging, and increasing the supply of healthy foods in schools, institutions, and workplaces. With the correct representation and maximum exposure of a healthy lifestyle in all areas of life, we can re-shift the conversation around healthy eating back on the right path.