New Insights into the Federal Calorie Labeling Law

项目摘要/摘要 “出门在外”或熟食的消费正在增加，并导致不良饮食、肥胖和 相关的健康问题。熟食包括在户外购买的“即食”食品 餐馆和其他零售食品店。虽然大多数熟食都是在餐馆里出售的，但越来越多的人， 超市和其他类似的食品零售商都在提供这些产品。到2017年4月/5月，大多数连锁食品 美国的零售商开始在餐厅菜单和熟食上张贴卡路里。这些 零售商这样做是因为预计即将出台的联邦法规将要求贴上卡路里标签。这些规定 最初定于2017年5月实施，但被推迟到2018年5月；到这一日期，所有连锁食品 在全美拥有20个或更多网点的零售商将被要求贴上标签。这项拨款提案将是世界上 到目前为止，全面和客观地检查卡路里标签，包括不同的环境(快餐 餐馆、超市)和标签的潜在影响(顾客购买、食品的重新配制、 健康结果、改变的社会规范)。与一家大型快餐连锁店特许经营商在 南方和美国东北部的一家大型连锁超市，我们将审查交易 93家快餐店和194家超市的记录，以确定卡路里是否从 预制食品在贴上标签后会发生变化。研究小组还将跟踪这些食物的营养特征 在美国最大的连锁餐厅和连锁超市出售，以确定食品行业是否 在贴上标签后推出新的低卡路里产品或将现有产品重新配方为低卡路里产品。我们 会将所有这些贴标签后的变化结果合并到一个预测肥胖是否会 贴上标签后，费率也会发生变化。此外，通过检查关于卡路里的提及、搜索和情绪， 在互联网和社交媒体平台上贴标签和食品机构，这项研究将有一个 前所未有的机会来确定卡路里标签是否具有更广泛的社会影响 采购和健康结果。到目前为止，所有的卡路里标签研究都是在餐馆进行的， 自助餐厅，或实验室环境。这项研究将是为数不多的检查全面交易记录的研究之一 来自食品零售商，第一个评估卡路里标签对超市熟食的影响，以及 首先检查联邦营养政策对互联网和社交媒体讨论的影响 卡路里和标签。资助这项研究将为一些令人兴奋的未来研究奠定基础 机遇。该项目将导致随着时间的推移创建交易的大型数据集 餐馆和超市以及来自互联网和社交媒体平台的数据，这些数据可以用于 对未来政策的评估，例如美国食品和药物管理局即将对 营养事实标签。与一家大型快餐连锁加盟商和一家大型连锁超市的合作 也可能导致对增加卡路里标签的策略进行现实世界的实验。该项目将提供 向政策制定者、行业领导者和公共卫生专业人员提供的关于是否以及如何进行的重要回答 卡路里标签起作用了。

Project Summary/Abstract Consumption of “away-from-home” or prepared foods is rising and contributes to poor diet, obesity and related health problems. Prepared foods include “ready-to-eat” food purchased outside the home at restaurants and other retail food stores. While most prepared foods are sold in restaurants, increasingly, supermarkets and other similar food retailers are offering these products. By April/May 2017, most chain food retailers in the United States began posting calories on restaurant menus and on prepared foods. These retailers did so in anticipation of coming federal regulations that will require calorie labeling. The regulations were initially set for implementation in May 2017 but were delayed until May 2018; by this date, all chain food retailers with 20 or more sites across the US will be required to label. This grant proposal will be the most comprehensive and objective examination of calorie labeling to date, covering different settings (fast-food restaurants, supermarkets) and potential effects of labeling (customer purchases, reformulation of food items, health outcomes, altered social norms). Conducted in partnership with a large fast-food chain franchisee in the South and a large supermarket chain in the Northeastern United States, we will examine transaction records from 93 fast-food restaurants and 194 supermarkets to determine whether calories purchased from prepared foods change after labeling. The research team also will track the nutrition characteristics of items sold at the largest US restaurant chains and at a supermarket chain to determine whether the food industry introduces new lower-calorie products after labeling or reformulates existing products to be lower calorie. We will incorporate all of these results on changes after labeling into a model that will predict whether obesity rates also change after labeling. Further, by examining mentions, searches and sentiment regarding calories, labeling, and food establishments on the internet and social media platforms, this study will have an unprecedented opportunity to determine whether calorie labeling has a broader societal effect, beyond purchasing and health outcomes. To date, all calorie labeling research has been conducted in restaurants, cafeterias, or lab settings. This study will be the one of the few to examine comprehensive transaction records from food retailers, the first to evaluate the effect of calorie labeling on supermarket prepared foods, and the first to examine the impact of a federal nutrition policy on internet and social media discussions regarding calories and labeling. Funding this research will lay the foundation for a number of exciting future research opportunities. This project will lead to the creation of a large dataset of transactions over time from restaurants and supermarkets and data from internet and social media platforms that could be used for evaluation of future policies, such as the US Food and Drug Administration’s forthcoming changes to the Nutrition Facts label. The partnership with a large fast-food chain franchisee and a large supermarket chain also may lead to real-world experiments of strategies to augment calorie labeling. This project will provide important answers to policymakers, industry leaders, and public health professionals about whether and how calorie labeling works.