Do The Obese Have The “Right” To Become More Obese?
In an attempt to help those who cannot help themselves from becoming obese, the government has implemented new legislative fiats requiring restaurants to post the calorie count of each item on their menus. Unfortunately, the heavy hand of government dictate is producing counter productive results. Consider the following study showing that forcing restaurants to post calorie information has actually had no beneficial impact but instead, has perversely resulted in consumers consuming more empty calories, not less.
After Calorie Warnings, Diners Order More Calories
Before food czars get any more punch-happy on their own Kool-Aid, they need to be purged of the illusion that their laws are actually working. Last month, New York University and Yale medical professors published a ground-breaking study, which shows that New York City’s law requiring fast food chains to post calories on their menus doesn’t reduce their customers’ caloric intake.
Sixteen municipalities including California, Seattle, and Portland have passed laws similar to NYC’s, and the Menu Education and Labeling Act, which would impose labeling regulations nationwide, is pending in Congress.
But the researchers’ most striking finding was that customers actually ordered more caloric items after the law went into effect than before, despite the fact that nine out of ten customers who reported using the information said they made healthier choices as a result of the law.
But the problem may also be more complex. It’s possible that people who are less educated may actually think they are eating more healthily than they are notwithstanding the calorie numbers staring them in the face.information and that 15% said they used it. But these figures demonstrate the law’s failure—not success. Despite the fact that people were readily presented with
The Department is boasting that 56% of customers saw the caloric the nutritional information, 85% of them ignored it.
The lawmakers who enacted the calorie posting regulations succumbed to the fallacy that everyone thinks like them. They probably reasoned that because they would make healthier choices if presented with nutritional information, everyone else would as well. But maybe what consumers actually want is a delicious meal at a low price.
So what’s the next step for an imperial government gone mad with regulations and micro control over the lives of their disconnected citizens?? You can see the next step coming. For those of us unable to think properly, based on bureaucratic notions of proper eating habits, the only option left is to impose more draconian rules. If fat people can’t stop themselves from gorging on food, the next logical legislative fiat would necessarily involve requiring restaurants to forcible eject or refuse to serve those individuals that the government “deems to be obese”.
I wonder how that will work out?
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