Highlighted Study Nutrition Menu Labeling and Kids by Adiana Castro

Dr. Tandon and team from the Seattle Children’s Research Institute and colleagues from the Department of General Pediatrics at the University of Washington conducted a study on nutrition menu labeling and effects it may have on children’s meal choices. 

Fact: Childhood obesity has risen in every age group from 1976 to 2006.

Children aged 2–5 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 12.4%
Children aged 6–11 years, prevalence increased from 6.5% to 17.0%
Children aged 12–19 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 17.6% (1, 2)

What is the research saying?

Dr. Tandon and team wanted to research the impact of nutrition menu labeling on meal choices for children. The hypothesis stated that nutrition labeling would result in lower-calorie meal choices by parents for their children (3). The experiment was a randomized controlled model set in the pediatric clinic in Seattle, Washington.

Parents in this community were invited to participate in the study. The parents were then placed into 2 groups. The first group of parents (a.k.a. control group) had a fast-food menu without the nutrition information displayed. The other group of parents (a.k.a. intervention group) had the same fast-food menu but with the nutrition information displayed. The parents in both groups were asked to choose menu items for their children and themselves. The results showed that the intervention group ordered about 100 less calories compared to the control group for their child’s meals. Interestingly, the meal choices for the parent’s groups did not show a difference (3).

Possible Significance

100 calories saved in a day may seem minimal but if you look at the bigger picture it can have a considerable impact on weight gain or weight loss. For instance, it is known as we get older our body metabolism changes and we begin to gain weight, about 2 lbs/year. This weight translates to 7000 calories/year (3500 calories = 1 lb). Therefore if we were to spread out those 7000 calories for the year, the calculation comes to about 19 calories per day. 100 calories is significantly higher than 19 calories it would not only help prevent weight gain but may also contribute to weight loss.  

What’s next?

The next step would be to study other parent populations to observe nutrition menu labeling trends. In this article the demographic of the study population was white, upper middle class and educated parents (3). It would be interesting to see if the results could be replicated in other populations.

For more information, please cite the references below.

References

1. NHANES data on the Prevalence of Overweight Among Children and Adolescents: United States, 2003–2006. CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Health E-Stat.
2. Ogden CL, Carroll MD, Flegal KM. High Body Mass Index for Age Among US Children and Adolescents, 2003–2006. JAMA 2008;299:2401–2405.
3. Tandon PS, Wright J, Zhou C, Rogers CB, Christakis DA. Nutrition Menu Labeling May Lead to Lower-Calorie Restaurant Meal Choices for Children. Pediatrics. 2010 Feb;125 (2):244-8.