menu labels

Four years ago, a federal law specified that chain restaurants with more than 20 outlets be required to post the calorie contents of their foods (menu labeling, or ML). The rationale for the law was that if consumers could get a realistic idea of the energy content of their foods, it might encourage them to choose foods with fewer calories and thus help reduce the burden of obesity. But the extent to which restaurant patrons actually use ML to decrease calorie consumption hasn t yet been determined.