Nutrition info on menus could help obesity - Study

Including nutritional information on restaurant and cafe menus could help tackle the growing problem of obesity, a new study suggests. 

A new Cochrane Review of evidence found that nutritional labelling on menus may reduce a person's calorie intake.

Researchers found that labelling on menus in restaurants led to a reduction of 47 calories purchased.

Assuming an average meal of 600 kcal, labelling on menus would reduce the number of calories purchased per meal by 7.8 per cent, they said.

But the authors stressed that the quality of evidence reviewed was "low" and they were only "tentatively" suggesting that nutritional labelling on menus in restaurants could be used as part of a wider set of measures to tackle obesity.

They called for more high quality evidence to strengthen the findings.

The Obesity Health Alliance, a coalition of 40 health bodies and charities, said the study showed that clear labelling helps empower people to make informed choices about the food they eat.

It added that restaurant food "too often" can be a large portion "packed with hidden ingredients".

Researchers, who examined a total of 28 studies on food labelling, said they were unable to reach conclusions about the effect of labelling on calories purchased from grocery stores or vending machines because the evidence was limited.

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They called for more research to address the "dearth of evidence" from grocery stores and vending machines and more studies to confirm the findings on restaurant menus.

Ella Pickover, 
Press Association Health Correspondent