Fast food calorie counts to become mandatory

By Owen Boss

Staff Writer

As Amherst resident James Torres stood at the McDonald's counter on Northampton's King Street recently, about to order a Big Mac and fries, he pondered what new regulations requiring fast-food chains to list calorie counts may do to his eating habits.

"It will be interesting to see which sandwiches will have the highest calorie totals," said Torres. "If I find out that some of my favorites are really high in calories, I may end up getting something else instead."

But other customers like Cheryl Teague, who was also waiting in line Thursday night to get a bucket of chicken at the local KFC, expect that posting calorie totals will have little effect on the decisions customers make at fast-food restaurants.

"A lot of these places already have calorie totals up online," Teague said. "If people have been eating this stuff for years and they already know how bad it is for them, I doubt that putting the numbers up on the menu will stop them from doing it now."

The new regulations, part of Gov. Deval Patrick's anti-obesity campaign, were unanimously approved by the state's Public Health Council earlier this week. They are similar to those already enacted in New York City, and require that any restaurant with more than 20 locations in the state prominently display the number of calories in each menu item near the listed price, both inside the eatery and in drive-through lanes.

This means that a customer ordering a Big Mac with fries and a soda for $6 will be confronted with a much larger number, 1,350, when looking at the calorie totals posted on the menu.

Although the new regulations won't officially go into effect until November 2010, council members are hoping to see chain restaurants start making some changes before then.

"The model is working and is being adopted in a number of cities and states across the country because it has been so successful," said council member Paul Lanzikos, executive director of North Shore Elder Services. "I am hoping that we see some voluntary compliance before the deadline."

Calorie listings will also appear on menus at traditional sit-down restaurants like Chili's, Ruby Tuesday and the Applebee's on Russell Street in Hadley, where Sarah Keadey and her friend Lauren were enjoying a light lunch Friday afternoon.

"I think that having the calories listed on the menu will be a big help with eating right," Keadey said. "Customers have the right to know exactly what they are ordering, and I wouldn't be surprised if more states make restaurants do that."

Mark Cartier, who stopped into a Subway restaurant in Hadley for a foot-long Italian grinder Friday afternoon, said he chose Subway because he felt it was a much healthier alternative to other options along the strip.

"I try to eat as healthily as I can and avoid most fast-food restaurants because the food they serve tends to be high in fat," Cartier said. "I bet seeing those numbers on the boards will really hurt business at places like McDonald's and Burger King."

The new regulations, Lanzikos said, will also affect the way menu items are listed at movie theater concession stands, but will not be required in school cafeterias and vending machines.

"Those may be regulations that we will have to look into later on," Lanzikos said.

According to the state's Department of Public Health, the proportion of Massachusetts adults who were overweight or considered obese rose from 43 percent in 1990 to 59 percent in 2007. And from 1998 to 2007, the number of Massachusetts adults with diabetes almost doubled, from 3.8 percent to 7.4 percent, according to the DPH.

Lanzikos said the new regulations aren't meant to punish restaurants for offering food items that are high in calories, but to help state residents make informed decisions when deciding what they want for a meal.

Similar requirements will soon be enacted in California, Philadelphia and Seattle, Lanzikos said, and those in New York City have already had a major impact on both customers and restaurant owners alike.

"The first thing that happened was that most of the restaurants that were required to post calorie totals took steps on their own to reduce the caloric value of existing menu items because they knew that customers would shy away from foods on the menu that were high in calories," Lanzikos said. "Then we saw that restaurants in New York City that weren't required to post caloric values started doing so because they knew that it was good for business. Once customers started getting used to making selections based on that information they would tend to go to restaurants that posted calories and avoid restaurants that didn't."

The U.S. Department of Health recommends that non-exercising adults consume between 1,600 and 2,400 calories a day.

McDonald's, Taco Bell, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Domino's, Pizza Hut, Subway, Quizno's and Dunkin' Donuts are among the local restaurants that will be affected by the new regulations.

Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.