Could your lunchtime sandwich be making you fat? It might sound farfetched but the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has revealed that ‘men gain about a quarter of their calories, and women a fifth, from dining out in restaurants, buying a sandwich for lunch or ordering a takeaway’. But do you know how many calories are in your favourite pizza or lunchtime sandwich? If your answer is ‘no’ then read on-because things are changing!
Under new proposals from the Department of Health and the FSA, restaurants and takeaways will voluntarily provide the calorie content of their foods. Currently, around 18 companies including Pizza Hut have joined the scheme and the FSA are hopeful that consumer demand will eventually lead to every food outlet taking part.
It’s part of a campaign to reduce increasing levels of obesity in the UK. Government figures (2) currently estimate that two thirds of adults and a third of children are overweight or obese.
The takeaway industry is not solely responsible for the obesity crisis. However, when 58 % (2) of people admit to having ‘no idea’ as to the calorie content of takeaways, which on average contain over 1000 calories (over half of a woman’s daily allowance), it is understandable that the Government wants to ‘plug’ that information gap. Furthermore, FSA research shows that consumers are in favour of easy to understand information regarding the ‘healthiness’ of food eaten outside the home.
The UK follows New York City and California in adopting this policy.
In New York, a study found that the provision of calorie information affected the menu choices of 82% of diners. The result has been an average reduction of between 50-100 calories per meal.
Whether this scheme will prove successful is uncertain. It’s clearly well intentioned but is it realistic?
It could be tricky working out the total number of calories in your entire meal—burger, fries and milkshake for example. Sharing makes the maths even worse! Are you prepared to do this every time you get a takeaway or sandwich at work?
I question the benefit of knowing the calories in our takeaways unless we also know the total of all other calories eaten that day? Are we also expected to work out our entire daily calorie intake? Do we even know how?
More needs to be done to inform and educate us about the food we eat and how the choices we make can affect the health of our family and ourselves. With the majority of meals eaten at home, we need easy to understand information about all food - be it home-made, out of a packet or from a takeaway.
In the meantime I’d be interested to know how many of you have experienced the new ‘calorie content’ menus and what you think of this new attempt to reduce obesity in the UK. Has it affected the food choices you make or do you think it’s all too complicated and a waste of time and money?
Further information:
Daily recommended calorie intake per day:�
Men- 2,500
Women –2,000
Children (between 5 and 10 years) – 1,800
References:
1) Windsetlers survey of 3000 adults (2006)
www.responsesource.com/releases/rel_display.php?relid=27514&export=pdf
2) Healthy weight, Healthy lives toolkit; A Toolkit for developing local strategies (2008) NHS
3) Technomic New York ‘Calorie content on menus is influencing people’s behaviour’ 2008
http://www.technomic.com/pressroom/calorie_count_release_feb5.html
One Comment
Great idea, but will this work over the long run?