Calories and Health Care Reform
By Michelle Meyers
A little known section in the Health Care Reform Bill requires chain restaurants to post calorie and other nutritional information on their menus.
While U.S. citizens debate the pros and cons of health care reform, those of us who see the need to count calories can secretly rejoice. Our cause apparently made it in to the health care reform act, according to Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition at NYU, writer for the New England Journal of Medicine.
Because of the reform, there will now be a national effort at posting calorie counts in chain restaurants.
For some, this might not be a big deal. However for people like me, who have countless business luncheons and breakfast meetings throughout each month, it could be a lifesaver.
But I’m not the only one who is doing a happy dance for this little piece of legislation.
As Danielle Ofri stated in a column for the Huffington Post, it’s a step in the right direction. Ofri, who is a writer and practicing internist at New York City's Bellevue Hospital, is also editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review.
Here are her comments regarding the support for calorie-counting: “… I was delighted to see the push toward posting calorie counts in restaurants. There's no mystery in the cause of the obesity epidemic--eating more and exercising less--but there are definitely complexities in the reasons people consume more calories now. Average people cannot control the fact that processed foods are laden with more high fructose corn syrup, or that portion sizes for soft drinks and food have increased immensely, or that in suburbia it's impossible to walk to anything …”
Ofri, whose newest book is Medicine in Translation: Journeys with my Patients , joins the overwhelming support from the medical community when it comes to counting calories and exercising more in order to stay healthy, lose weight and fight chronic disease.
Hopefully, with chain restaurants displaying calories in their menus, we can all make healthier choices and stay on track. Every little bit helps.
