Disease Proof

Last month New York City restaurants began mandatory posting of calorie-content on menus and now it seems Los Angeles is pondering the same move. Jennifer Martinez of Reuters reports:

Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Michael Antonovich will present a proposed ordinance to the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors next week that would force fast-food chains and restaurants to display the number of calories alongside the price of items on their menus.

The proposed law is intended to decrease obesity among adults and children in America's second-largest city.

While Los Angeles has a reputation as a mecca of diet and exercise crazes, the county's Department of Public Health says residents are less fit than many realize.

The percentage of obese adults in Los Angeles County increased 46 percent over eight years, to 20.9 percent in 2005 from 14.3 percent in 1997, according to the department.

"The menu should be as informative of what its effect is on one's waistline as it is on their pocketbooks," Yaroslavsky said. "Not ingesting 800 calories in a meal makes a huge difference to one's health and quality of life."

I’m not a calorie-counter, but giving people as much information about their food as possible doesn’t really have a downside—right?