The Position of Calories on Menus Influences How Much People Eat. ESRI Research Bulletin 2019/15

Robertson, Deirdre and Lunn, Pete (2019) The Position of Calories on Menus Influences How Much People Eat. ESRI Research Bulletin 2019/15. UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

High levels of obesity worldwide have led to calls for calorie information to be put on food menus. Ireland’s Obesity Policy and Action Plan commits the government to introduce legislation on calorie posting. In advance of this measure, some restaurants have adopted voluntary policies and put calories on their menus already. However, the size of the calorie information and where it is placed on the menu differs across restaurants. This may matter, because research in behavioural economics suggests that, in general, the size, colour and location of information affects how people respond to it. In research funded by the Department of Health, the ESRI’s Behavioural Research Unit designed an experiment to test how the location of calorie information on menus affects whether consumers notice calorie information and how much they order, eat and understand.

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