The XX Factor: What women really think.

Can Posting Calorie Counts Be Hazardous to Your Health?

The onslaught against obesity continues in New York City. A federal appeals court yesterday rejected a challenge to a 2007 city regulation requiring large chain restaurants to post calorie information on their menus. According to the NYT, the New York State Restaurant Association contended that the requirement that they display calorie information violated their rights, including those protected under the First Amendment. City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden called the ruling against the Restaurant Association good news for all: “Nearly all chain restaurants are now complying with the law. Consumers are learning more about the food before they order, and the market for healthier alternatives is growing.”

 

But maybe not everyone stands to gain when calories are posted. While this information may help foster a health-conscious environment and alert those who routinely underestimate their caloric intake, posting nutritional values can actually be very harmful in communities in which food obsession cuts the opposite way. I’m thinking here of college campuses, where anorexia and bulimia are often huge problems. In December, for instance, Harvard removed the nutritional information from their dining halls after students voiced concerns that it lead to or worsened eating disorders. Same discussion surfaced at my school, Notre Dame recently for the same reasons, with the school eventually resorting to creating an online nutritional database rather than tacking information directly to the buffet lines.

 

Many universities have long-standing issues with women and eating disorders, and you can be sure these young women who will be tuning into the newly posted information, for the wrong reasons. These food-labeling rules assume that the only problem facing Americans is that we are obese. But there are many young women who very wrongly think they’re obese when they weigh 97 pounds, and they are starving themselves to death.