Government Policies Promoting Plump People

Recently, the US government Food and Drug Administration (FDA) passed litigation that requires restaurant chains to provide nutritional information for their food to their customers. However, the policy’s loopholes allow for some significantly high calorie food and beverages to be served underneath the observation and provision of revealing nutritional information. This proposed policy makes no sense at all. Just the high calorie foods and drinks that people forget to count are the ones that are excluded from the requirement? In my not-always-humble opinion, I believe that all places that serve food should fall under the guidelines of calorie reporting. That especially goes for drinks and alcoholic beverages – they must be included.

Recently, a New York Times article was published about this very policy. According to the article, Calorie-Counting to Leave Out Movie Theaters, “The federal government on Friday released proposed rules requiring chain restaurants and other businesses that serve food to post calorie counts on menus and menu boards. But after objections from theater chains, the rules give a pass to those box-office snacks — even though a large popcorn and soda can contain as many calories as a typical person needs in a day. The new disclosure rules also exempt alcoholic beverages served in restaurants, including beer, wine and high-calorie mixed drinks like margaritas and daiquiris.”

The neglect to report calories for one of the most fattening resources of food and beverages around – the movie theater – is not only an unfair exception, but beyond that, it’s an appalling overlook. Did you know that a large popcorn and large soda at the movies will count as a 2000 calorie “snack”? WOW. Don’t consumers need to have that kind of information salient? One of the major sources of calories for kids comes from sodas and juices. This is true for adults also, and alcoholic beverages add in even more calories! Not to mention that when one drinks they lose track of how much they are consuming, calorie-wise. If we wish to help Americans make better food choices, then the information to do that has to be available everywhere. Legislation and strong political lobbying groups should not be able to override the posting requirements.

This policy shows that our government is choosing to be swayed and influenced by the objections from movie theater chains rather than standing solidly by the citizens of our country who are willing to count calories in order to prevent obesity. Hope is not lost… yet. The FDA has stated that they will “accept consumer and industry feedback on the rules before finishing them, hopefully by the end of this year.” Write your local, state and federal representatives, as well as the FDA, demanding justice in calorie transparency from all our food sources. We can fight together for health.

References:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/business/02menu.html?_r=1&emc=eta1