"But it turns out that in the fight against obesity, labeling menus hasn't delivered on its promise. Despite the clamor for more information...
...wrote that a mandatory menu-labeling regulation imposed on Washington state's King County restaurants did not affect consumers' calorie consumption at all.
The authors "were surprised that we could not detect even the slightest hint of changes in purchasing behavior as a result of the legislation," they wrote.
Such findings are at odds with a report by the White House Task Force on Obesity, which claimed that "when presented with calorie information (how many calories are contained in each menu item) and a calorie recommendation (how many calories men and women of varying activity levels should consume), people on average order meals with significantly fewer calories."
First lady and benevolent food tyrant Michelle Obama likes to cite that data point when pressing for greater restaurant regulation.
But as Julie Gunlock explained at National Review Online in 2011, that claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
"This study was conducted in one Subway sandwich shop on only 292 participants, the vast majority of whom were adult white males, 25 percent of whom admitted they were currently dieting," she wrote.
"This isn't exactly research upon which major policy decisions should be based."
And yet, in this administration, it was..."
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