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November 4th, 2015 
Awake Goy 
Susanne Posel ,Chief Editor Occupy Corporatism | Co-Founder, Legacy Bio-Naturals
November 3, 2015
Researchers from New York University (NYU) Langone Medical Center (LMC) have published a study of fast food chains in New York and how the calorie counts on the menu are working out – only to discover that Americans don’t care about the calorie count of their meals.
In fact, printing calorie counts next to meal descriptions on menus are not a deterrent to lowering obesity rates … at all.
Seven years ago, the city of New York ordered fast food restaurants such as McDonalds, Jamba Juice, Chick-fil-A, Starbucks and many others to “voluntarily” post calorie information for customers to see when ordering.
Sixty-one restaurants did not post calorie counts; perhaps because their menu items were higher in caloric measurements when compared to other outlets.
Shockingly, the researchers noted that posting calorie counts did not motivate customers to reduce their caloric intake by ordering healthier items.
The truth is that fast food chains who offer lower calorie items were keen on publicizing this fact as a point of marketing against their competitors.
Jason Block, assistant professor for the Harvard Medical School department of population, commented: “What (chains) might be saying is, ‘we are pretty good compared with our competitors, so we should publicize this’. There seems to be a growing demand for healthier food in general, and restaurants are responding to that.”
Using data provided by the NYC department of health and mental hygiene algorithm called MenuStat , the researchers had access to national fast food statistics from every year going back to 2012.
An average of 17% of children and 35% of adults living in the US are obese. With these numbers in mind, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced recently that “food outlets with more than 20 locations must list calorie counts on their menus by December 2016.”
The uselessness of putting caloric counts on menus was evidenced by the responses of customers. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said they noticed the calorie information, but only 12% used the data to make healthier choices.
In New Jersey, only 2% of fast food customers considered the calorie counts when ordering food.
The study points out that there was “no consistent change in the nutritional content of foods and beverages purchased or in how often respondents purchased fast food.”
Brian Elbel, senior investigator for the study, theorized that putting calorie counts on sit-down restaurant menus would be more effective because “dining expectations are different” and those who avoid fast food are probably “health-conscious diners”.
Essentially, fast food consumers wouldn’t care about the healthful benefits of a Big Mac or Whopper as evidenced by the fact that they are eating that type of food to begin with.
But with all the unhealthy food being consumed, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) claim that over the last decade, obesity rates in children and adults have been tapering off because in all Americans are eating fewer calories.
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