Menu labeling goes national

Jacob Sullum reminds us that among the many provisions in the heath care bill passed yesterday is a federal rule requiring calorie counts on chain restaurant menus nationwide. Obviously this is small potatoes compared to other aspects of the bill, but it’s still a bad idea. As I’ve explained in The Washington Examiner and on this blog, the empirical case that these labels will have any effect on obesity remains very weak. Labeling should have been examined further in the jurisdictions that require it before taking it national. If it worked, we could have debated a federal law separately. Instead we’re stuck complying with it before the idea has been proven, and when results fail to materialize we won’t see Congress rushing to repeal their error.

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Tagged as: calorie counts, HCR, menu labeling, obesity