What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Menu Labeling

Obesity in America has become an epidemic. A large portion of Americans are either obese or overweight. The largest contributors to obesity in America, are restaurants. Food in restaurants often caters to people’s taste buds rather than nutritional value. Restaurants serve foods high in calories and in large portion sizes and people are often unaware of how much calories they are ingesting. In order to help with this issue, the FDA proposed menu-labeling rule. The nutrition labeling rule, is a part of the Affordable Care Act’s Title IV “Prevention of Chronic Disease and improving Public Health. It requires restaurants, “part of a chain with 20 or more locations doing business under the same name" to "disclose in a clear and conspicuous manner" a "nutrition disclosure statement," a "suggested daily calorie intake," and "the number of calories contained in the standard menu item.” …show more content…
Advantages include, costumers being aware of the amount of calories they are ingesting and have a better understanding of what they eat. Before a customer chooses an item, it gives them knowledge to know how much calories a particular item may be, and it may be shocking to them. It helps in the movement of decreasing chronic disease and weight gain. Obesity can cause several health related issues, such as heart disease and high cholesterol. If the obesity problem can be helped, it can lower the prevalence of these diseases. Disadvantages include, restaurants spending more money printing new menus, food displays and boards. Also, fear for restaurants to potentially lose money from high calorie menu items. Customers could gain a lack of enjoyment of food. Though food should be for nutrition, people do eat food for pleasure. If they see that their favorite meal is high in calories, it could cause unhappiness for the consumer and they no longer buy the item, causing possible monetary loss for the restaurant over