‘At best, calorie labelling is deeply misleading. At worst, it’s genuinely harmful’

Content warning: eating disorders

In April it became mandatory for restaurants, cafés and takeaways that employ more than 250 staff to clearly label the calorie content of their dishes on menus. There are many fantastic independent restaurants in Bristol that this will not affect, but it’s likely to be impossible to avoid the calorie count forever.

In my late teens, I spent three years living with anorexia nervosa. At my worst, I was eating 1,000 calories per day. I became very ill, very quickly. Eating out was incredibly stressful.

I suffered an eating disorder when I was a teenager but this is a move that will affect many – photo: Meg Houghton Gilmour

Fortunately for me, my illness came at a time before calorie labelling on restaurant menus. I can’t begin to imagine the health outcomes for me had the two coincided.

The government has offered a helpful get out of jail free card for those that don’t want to see the calorie content of food – you can ask to see a menu without the labels.

There’s no way I would’ve asked for a menu without calories when I was anorexic. It would have meant risking being questioned and discovered. Plus, this only applies in restaurants with physical menus. In fast-food chains, the menu is printed on the wall or displayed on a screen – meaning you would have to willfully ignore this and walk up to the counter to ask for a menu without calories.

For me, this would have been impossible. I expect it will also be impossible for the 1.25 million people currently living with an eating disorder.

I am incredibly fortunate; I consider myself fully recovered from anorexia. Now,  I avoid calorie labels at all costs, I never weigh myself and I refuse to partake in any kind of conversations around weight. I still struggle when people around me talk about their body image or what they’ve eaten in a negative way.

I’ve absolutely no doubt that these toxic, self-deprecating discussions will become increasingly more common over the dinner table, sucking all the joy out of eating out.

I don’t want to engage in a competition of who can order the least calories at Pizza Express, thank you very much.

Calories in, calories out

Adding calories on menus is not intended to make people healthier, it’s to make people lose weight. Those are not the same thing and is based on the idea that if you have a calorie deficit you will automatically become smaller.

Calories in, calories out right? Wrong.

Humans are not closed loop calorie processing systems – our metabolisms, genetics, hormones and environments are all different.

Weight loss is not a linear process. The longer you restrict calories, the more your metabolism downshifts. Weight loss plateaus after a little while because of this and your metabolism could be permanently altered.

Therefore, over time reducing your calorie intake can be detrimental for your body’s natural ability to regulate your weight.

Yet the government states “body weight is dependent on the balance between how many calories we consume from food and drinks and the total energy that is expended by the body”.

This isn’t accurate. BMI is highly heritable and genetic differences explain 75 per cent variability in individuals. That is to say that when we restrict calories to lose weight, we are actively fighting against our own genetics. Don’t even get me started on where the BMI scale comes from.

Food labels don’t take into account the calories used digesting said food, which could be between 10 to 15 per cent. Nor do they take into account how many calories your body can actually use. A 1,000 calorie dish will affect every single person who eats it differently.

Calories don’t teach us about eating in moderation, getting enough vitamins and minerals, eating fruit and vegetables or fats and proteins.

There are 563 calories in the average big mac. There are also around 563 calories in the Thai curry that I made last night. I can confidently tell you which was healthier and will leave me fuller for longer.

Labelling and 2,000 calories a day

2,000 is a number we see everywhere, but where did it come from?

The number is not based on medical or nutritional research or recommended diets. It is based on USDA data, in which people self-reported how many calories they thought they ate in a day. Men, women and children reported consuming between 1600 and 3000 calories, but the likelihood is that they underestimated in order to seem virtuous.

Based on this, the FDA initially recommended 2350 calories per day (roughly in the middle), but the public thought this was too high. They thought people would likely eat more than the recommended amount anyway, so that they might as well bring it down to the nice round number of 2,000.

In short, 2,000 calories is a completely arbitrary number that now features on hundreds of thousands of menus across the country.

Does menu labelling work?

Menu labelling was first introduced in New York in 2008, and then in three other jurisdictions the following year despite absolutely no evidence to suggest it works. When they finally did get around to researching it, this is what they found:

A 2014 literature review on the influence of calorie labelling said: “Overall the best design studies show that calorie labels do not have the desired effect in reducing total calories ordered at the population level”.

It’s not been shown to reduce the calories in dishes offered by restaurants either. A cohort study conducted by Harvard comprising 59 restaurant chains found that “restaurants did not change the calorie content of continuously offered items. However new items introduced after calorie labelling had a mean of 113 fewer calories”. A 25 per cent reduction.

This was actually only true of fast food chains. In sit-down restaurants the reduction was between 15 to 17 calories. In fast-casual chains the calories actually went up. So it doesn’t work in increasing corporate responsibility, either.

The Whitmore Tap in Bristol is part of the Butcombe group and therefore has now got the calories labelled on its menu – photo: Meg Houghton Gilmour

In 2015, researchers at NYU reported that while diners changed their ordering patterns in the short term, over the years the percentage of respondents using the information declined and that overall there were no statistically significant changes in levels of calories purchased. It’s not an effective behaviour change method.

The menu, complete with calorie counts, at the Whitmore Tap – photo: Meg Houghton Gilmour

So why has the government done this?

The title of a press release states “Government renews drive to tackle obesity and improve the nation’s health”.

If we are trying to improve the nation’s health then why is there not also mandatory labelling of sugar and carbohydrates for people with diabetes, or gluten for celiacs? Do we not care about the health outcomes for those people?

You could argue that there are much more pressing things to label on menus – The Canteen in Stokes Croft is trialling carbon labelling on their food. The impact of climate change on our health is likely to be far higher than that of obesity.

The Canteen, where carbon labelling is being trialled – photo: Martin Booth

The government does not seem remotely concerned about the number of households who are going to have to choose between heating and eating this winter – what about the health problems that will cause?

What about all the people having to rely on food banks to feed their families? Or the food deserts throughout the UK, two of which are on our doorstep in south Bristol.

This decision follows a pattern that is becoming all too well established by those in positions of power and influence. A pattern of placing the onus on the individual. If we recycle enough, if we cycle instead of drive, if we eat less meat, we’ll save the world and have safer, healthier cities right? It’s on us to make our lives better, not them.

There are so many holes in the strategy – it’s about as watertight as my colander.

At best calorie labelling is deeply misleading. At worst, it’s genuinely harmful. Go forth, Bristolians, and ask for that menu without calories.

Main photo: Betty Woolerton

Read more: First Bristol food outlet to trial ‘carbon labelling’ on menus

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