What You Don't Know Can Hurt You -- Consumers Lacking In Nutritional Knowledge

Newswise — Ignorance may be bliss, but not when it comes to making healthy eating choices. That’s the message University of Arkansas researchers Scot Burton and Elizabeth Creyer have for Americans who frequently dine out. Their recently completed study examines the accuracy with which consumers estimate the nutritional content of restaurant meals. They discovered that diners routinely underestimate the amount of fat and calories in restaurant meals, sometimes by very significant amounts.

However, when nutritional information is added to the menu, Burton and Creyer found that diners do tend to consider the information when selecting foods and are more likely to favor those with fewer calories and less fat, even if the healthier choices are slightly more expensive.

The research, conducted by Burton, Creyer and graduate students Jeremy Kees and Kyle Huggins, was presented at the Marketing and Public Policy Conference, where it received the best conference paper award.

“Americans spend more than $400 billion per year on foods consumed in restaurants,” noted Burton, who, along with Creyer, is a professor of marketing and logistics at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. “That’s more than $1 billion per day, and the figures are still growing. The problem with this is that restaurants typically do not include nutrition information on their menus, so, as we have discovered, people really have no concept of just how many calories and how much fat and sodium they’re consuming. As we consider the problem of obesity and obesity-related diseases in the United States, that fact could have some very significant consequences.”

Unlike packaged foods, which are required by law to supply nutrition information on their labels, restaurants are not obligated to provide consumers with nutrition information for their menu items. Although some restaurants, particularly major fast food chains, have made such information available, it is generally accessible only through corporate Web sites or brochures, so most consumers never see it.

In the absence of readily available figures, diners can only guess the fat and calorie content of their meals. While many diners can assess nutrition content for ‘healthy’ foods (i.e., a chicken breast or plain turkey sandwich) fairly accurately, when asked to determine the fat and calorie content of ‘unhealthy’ items, like a large hamburger with french fries, Burton and Creyer discovered that most diners’ guesses are wrong—very wrong.

“We found that most people tend to think of a ‘bad’ meal as having maybe 700 or 800 calories,” Creyer explained. “In fact, an average super-sized fast food meal typically has double that number of calories and more than 40 grams of fat.”

Burton and Creyer then set out to determine whether printing nutrition information for food items directly on menus would have an effect on consumers’ purchasing decisions. They found that when consumers were provided with an objective nutrient analysis of their potential meals, they began to reconsider their choices and opt for lower calorie, lower fat items. They discovered that the presence of this information was especially significant for items whose nutrition content differed widely from consumers’ expectations.

“I think it was a real eye-opener for some people,” noted Burton. “For instance, most diners perceive a chef salad to be a ‘healthy’ choice because it’s a salad, but they don’t realize that when you add all of the meats, cheeses and heavy dressings, you can get nearly as many calories as in a hamburger and more than a day’s worth of fat. Having this information really can cause diners to rethink what they’re eating and to make healthier selections.”

To that end, Burton and Creyer feel that their findings support legislation such as the Menu Education and Labeling (MEAL) Act, introduced in 2003 by Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. This bill would require that all restaurant chains with more than 20 outlets list information such as calories, saturated fat and sodium content for all items on their menus. Fast food restaurant chains would be required to list just calories.

“It has been estimated that more than 400,000 people die each year from obesity and obesity-related diseases,” Burton noted. “As long as people are eating so much food outside the home without being conscious of the amount of fat and calories they’re consuming while also failing to exercise regularly, those statistics may be unlikely to change.

“Basically, the bottom line, from our perspective, is that consumers have to be motivated to make wise choices, but to make wise choices they must have information. This is simply a way of providing that information,” he said.

Many in the restaurant industry oppose the bill, citing the high cost of testing to determine the nutrition content of items as well as the potential for confusion when trying to assess calorie, fat and sodium levels for items that can be served many different ways, such as sandwiches that offer a variety of bread, meat and topping choices.

Creyer and Burton are quick to point out, however, that there are advantages for restaurants in becoming more nutrition-minded. In their study, they found that many consumers are willing to make a trade-off between price and nutrition. If they have the option of a more healthful menu item, they tend to choose it, even if it is a bit more expensive than a less healthy one.

Some restaurant chains have taken a proactive approach and are already beginning to include nutrition information on their menus.

“This can be a wise strategy,” Burton said. “Restaurants who take this proactive approach will be viewed as more health conscious and have the potential to reposition themselves relative to competitors and achieve a competitive advantage in the marketplace.”

In the end, though, Creyer and Burton note that the health and welfare of consumers should be the major motivating factor for all parties.