The Foolishness of the New FDA Labeling Requirements

This past Tuesday, the FDA finalized new regulations, obligated by the Affordable Care Act, that mandates the display of calorie counts on menus and vending machine labels and covers food and beverages, including alcohol, as well as businesses like “’movie theaters, sports stadiums, amusement parks, bowling alleys and miniature golf courses that serve prepared foods.’  Moreover, the new rules “would apply to any restaurant or other establishment with more than 20 locations that sells "restaurant-type food."

Nevertheless, does mandatory labeling actually work to reduce obesity and change public perceptions of fast food?

Certainly, these questions have been ignored by the federal government and the FDA as they quickly advance their plans in another “successful” attempt to address obesity that follow in the wake of 18 states and cities that have menu-labeling regulations in effect. Despite these local passages of such illogical regulations, studies such as one from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University who examined 1121 adults at two New York City McDonalds where menu-labeling is compulsory, found that “A majority…ate more than the recommended intake for a meal…[and] neither type of information had an impact on the number of calories consumed, compared to the group with no information.” Clearly, menu-labeling fails to alter the actions of consumers who have already decided they want to buy a certain product to feed their tastes.

Even with contrasting views among industry groups for and against the law, the law will drastically affect food service businesses and their offerings for the worst. Businesses like grocery stores, forced between doing calorie counts for servings of the thousands of offered foods, will shrink their product offerings and display more profitable ones like unhealthy, high caloric foods such as cookies.

Undoubtedly, the new regulations ignore concrete scientific evidence that overwhelmingly demonstrates menu-labeling does not change the behavior of consumers into consuming healthier foods and will impose expensive burdens upon businesses according to the Food Marketing Institute that states the new rules will cost more than a billion dollars, for futile public health goals. Instead of these nearsighted regulations and government force to uselessly change the behaviors of people, the government must leave the market alone and let businesses and consumers decide what is best for them. If consumers seek to consume and buy healthier foods, businesses respond through reducing unhealthy options and offering healthier foods, as is currently happening. Therefore, I urge the abolition of these regulations.