Government to open consultation on calorie labels in food outlets

The government is to hold a public consultation on introducing calorie labels for restaurants, cafes and takeaways, as part of a mission to help people take control of their own health and live longer, healthier, happier lives.

Key facts:
  • A public consultation will now open, seeking views on how best to introduce the plans, including any additional considerations that should be taken into account for small businesses, street vendors and restaurants with fast changing menus. 
  • Calorie information is already widely available in supermarkets and voluntarily available from some restaurants. These plans will level the playing field and ensure the same information is available everywhere.
  • Obesity significantly increases the risk of heart attacks, strokes, cancer, type II diabetes, dementia and mental health problems, particularly depression 
  • Consequently, obesity reduces life expectancy by an average of three years
  • Severe obesity reduces life expectancy by eight to ten years
  • This is not about forcing anyone to eat certain things, or avoid certain things – it is about ensuring we know the nutritional content of the food that we eat and we give to our children. 

The aim is not to spoil your fun but to give you the information to make informed choices about what you want from life.


Why this matters:

Obesity-related conditions are factors in some of the most common causes of early death and often wreck the quality of life while people are still alive.

They also cost the NHS £6.1 billion per year.

Evidence shows that overweight children are more likely to become overweight adults, who have a high risk of developing health conditions.

Comments

Jim said…
What an absolute waste of time. We live in an age where information is freely available on mass. Do you really think people will be shocked about how many calories are in a big mac???

Kind of the same situation as the warnings on cigarettes, and then making them bigger, and then locking them behind screens in shops, and then putting them in plain packets (even though no one can see them as they are behind screens) I can tell you it was none of those that made me quit smoking.

The world an politicians seem to have gone mad. I bought some new coils for my vape today, they have the huge warning "This product contains nicotine which is a highly addictive substance" then below in tiny writing it says "the above warning only applies if this device has been filled with nicotine containing e-liquid"

Why not put the same thing on a slow cooker? "THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS PORK SO IS NOT SUITABLE FOR JEWS OR MUSLIMS" - the above warning only applies if you put pork in it.

People can actually think for themselves and do research.
Chris Whiteside said…
I don't agree.

Some restaurants are already doing this, the aim is to share this good practice. It's not intended to shock anyone, it's not intended to spoil anyone's fun, or to prevent those who want to eat something they love which has a lot of calories from doing so.

Not is this an attempt to get high calorie items off the menu - there are plenty of underweight people in the world who don't need to avoid them.

The purpose is to provide those people who do wish to keep their intake under better control with the information to help them keep score of how many calories they have eaten.

I'm trying to lose weight and would find this information very helpful. And I don't want to have to spend half an hour before ordering interrogating the waiting staff for full details of what the restaurant has included in the ingredients for every dish so I can do my own calculations.

It's a consultation at this stage, the government will listen to what the industry has to say about the practicalities.

The fact that some food information labels would be silly does not make it a bad idea to include helpful ones.

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