Calories being printed on menus could have negative impact
Posted Jan 3, 2017 04:53:44 PM.
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Just in time to potentially help with New Years resolutions, a new regulation is in place for restaurants with more than 20 locations or chains.
Restaurants of this size are now required to print the total amount of calories found in every dish, right on their menu.
Alcoholic beverages are also subject to an “average calories” table.
Some may feel this is a beneficial way to start eating healthier, but Co-Chair of the Waterloo-Wellington Eating Disorders Coalition, Andrea LaMarre, thinks this could do more harm than good for people with eating disorders.
“For somebody with anorexia, for instance, perhaps they’ve got a number of calories per day that they have in their mind that they can’t exceed,” says LaMarre, “it could make it very hard to go into restaurants and see that something you were going to challenge yourself to have, something that felt risky to you, was actually above the amount of calories you’ve allotted to yourself in that day.”
More goes into nutrition than simply the amount of calories, just as every different body shape and type have a different suggested daily calorie intake.
LaMarre adds, “I think the bottom line is that we’re all a little different, and we all need to be following slightly different health recommendations and these broad sweep initiatives don’t necessarily take that into account.”
