You may have noticed that since the adoption of the Affordable Care Act, chain restaurants have added nutritional information to their menus. But, is anyone actually reading this info? It turns out, that images or symbols might be a better way to communicate nutritional and calorie information to diners.

That's the finding of new research co-written by a University of Illinois agricultural economist Brenna Ellison, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics. Ellison suggests that placing a symbolic label in addition to the numeric calorie information on a menu is a better way to reach more diners.

"Our research found that if only numeric calorie labels are implemented, the effect on calories ordered will be smaller in magnitude. But less health-conscious patrons are still likely to respond to the information by ordering lower-calorie items, which is good," she said.

"However, if you go one step further and add a symbol — in our case, a traffic light symbol — to the existing calorie information, that extra step benefits even the most health-conscious individuals."


"The traffic light may function as a normative suggestion as to what is 'better' or 'worse' for diners to eat," Ellison said. "Thus, by reducing the number of calories ordered for diners across all levels of health-consciousness, the combination calorie/traffic-light label seems to be more effective than the numeric calorie label alone."

The research, co-written by Jayson L. Lusk and David Davis, both of Oklahoma State University, was conducted in a full-service restaurant. Patrons were randomly assigned one of three different types of menus, some with no information about calories, some with the number of calories listed and some with a symbol (in this case, a traffic light symbol with red, yellow and green lights indicating specific calorie ranges) in addition to the numeric calorie label.

The results show that the calorie labels listing only numbers had the greatest impact on the least health-conscious patrons.

"That's good news, because this is exactly who the government is trying to reach with this information," Ellison said. "However, labels of any form, so long as they are relatively easy to understand, are likely to have the largest impact on less health-conscious diners, because the information is new to these individuals."



So if the government is looking for a policy that would help the largest possible population, adding a symbol to the calorie information might make these public health efforts more effective, Ellison said.

"A downside to the Affordable Care Act legislation as currently proposed is that it just provides a number," she said. "If we've learned anything about consumers, it's that people often operate under time constraints and are very convenience oriented. Not every restaurant diner has time to read, or even wants to read, the number of calories listed for each menu item.


In 1980, 30 percent of meals were consumed outside of the home. Now it's about 40 percent, according to the research paper. The proportion of food dollars spent outside the home has hovered between 46 and 49 percent since 2000, according to the Economic Research Service.


But if the labels only result in a one-time calorie reduction, the effect is relatively small. On average, the combination calorie/traffic-light label only reduced the total amount ordered by about 69 calories, Ellison says.


Ellison notes that the research has an additional takeaway for consumers: Calorie labels were more likely to influence the selection of the main entrée as opposed to supplemental items such as drinks and desserts.

"While both calorie labels reduced [the amount of] entrée calories ordered, both [labels] also actually increased extra calories ordered from additional sides, desserts, drinks, etc. compared to the menu with no nutrition information," she said. "So there does seem to be what we call a 'licensing effect,' which could also potentially be a concern. In other words, people might reward themselves for ordering a low-calorie entrée by adding on a dessert, ultimately negating the entrée calorie reduction.


Another stumbling block for consumers could be foods associated with "health halos," Ellison warns.



"It could very well be something else," she said. "The traffic light is being used in the U.K. and Australia in a slightly different form, but since it's being used elsewhere, we wanted to try it here. You could use a star rating system or some other variation, but negative information" — in this case, a red traffic light — "seems to affect people more than positive."

The study also asked respondents which type of label they preferred.

"It turns out that the traffic light was the least preferred, even though it was the most effective," she said. "The numeric label, however, was the most well liked, which struck us as odd. It seems as though people want the information, but they don't necessarily want to be told how to apply it.

"In other words, they want to know how many calories are in foods, but they don't think it's our job to tell them whether those foods are good or bad."



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