"For nearly 20 years, consumers have benefitted from nutrition labels on packaged foods, but have remained in the dark about the nutritional quality of their restaurant meals," says Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a co-author of the menu labeling provision in the law. "The passage of menu labeling closes this glaring loophole.""Benefitted"? Which explains why Americans are so fat.
By March 23, the one year anniversary of the passage of the health law, the Food and Drug Administration is required to propose labeling regulations that will govern everything from the font restaurants must use to post calorie information to how the calorie counts of items on menus are determined.It does not raise questions.
Final regulations are expected by the end of the year and consumers will see most calorie information by mid-2012, predicts Margo Wootan, the Center for Science in the Public Interest's nutrition director.
But will that information do much good? Three studies conducted in New York and Seattle examined habits at fast food chains where menu labeling laws are already in place. They found that calorie knowledge isn't enough to change most consumers' choices. That raises questions about how effective the government's new labeling rules will be in improving public health and reducing the rate of obesity, which is linked to multiple chronic diseases including high blood pressure and diabetes.
It answers the questions.
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