The findings deal the latest blow to England’s calorie labelling rules.
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When restaurants are required to add calorie labels to their menus, you might think they’d try to make their foods a bit healthier – but they largely don’t, according to a new study from England.
In 2022, England began requiring its large restaurants, pubs, cafes, and fast food spots to include calorie labels on their menus, in a bid to steer people toward healthier options.
But these labels don’t appear to have made much difference. On average, menus’ calorie counts fell by about 2 per cent after the policy was implemented, according to the study published in the journal BMJ Public Health.
That translates to a “modest to limited impact on population health,” concluded the researchers from universities in the United Kingdom.
The findings deal the latest blow to the calorie labelling rules, which advocates had hailed as a welcome step to curb obesity. Last year, another study found that people in England hardly changed their habits after the policy was enacted, eating a comparable number of calories out.
Frequently eating meals out is linked to obesity, which raises the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and several cancers.
The researchers had suspected that calorie labels might prompt restaurants to take a “health by stealth” approach by gradually reducing the amount of sugar and salt in their food without their customers noticing.
The new study, which included more than 31,000 menu items from 78 chains before and after the policy went into place, proved that hypothesis wrong.
Looking only at foods that were sold both before and after the policy went into effect, calorie counts remained fairly level. However, there was a notable reduction in calories for soft drinks, non-alcoholic drinks, and burgers.
There were also differences based on the type of establishment. Sports and entertainment venues saw the biggest calorie drop (13.5 per cent), followed by pubs (9 per cent) and restaurants (5 per cent).
That is largely because some high-calorie food and drinks were taken off their menus, and lower-calorie options were added – though not enough to make a significant difference overall.
“We found more evidence of menu change rather than reformulation, with items removed from menus being higher energy than continuous items,” the researchers said.
They said that’s why calorie labelling policies may be less effective than, for example, the UK’s tax on soft drinks, which prompted manufacturers to change their recipes and cut down on sugar.
The latest findings come as England and the broader UK grapple with a growing obesity epidemic. An estimated 26.5 per cent of adults in England are obese, reflecting an “upward trend” from a decade ago, national health data shows.
Meanwhile, among those aged 16 and older, just 31.3 per cent say they eat at least five portions of fruits and vegetables per day.
The UK government says that if its population cut out just 50 calories per day, it could bring 2 million adults and 340,000 children out of obesity.
