by Dennis Liu

Created on: May 31, 2008   Last Updated: August 13, 2010

Strawberry cheesecake, ice cream, hamburgers, fries, nachos, yum! Is your mouth watering yet? If it is, then quickly jump in your car and drive to the nearest restaurant to go eat your favorite dish. Okay, you don't have to do that, but do you really know how much calories is in the food you eat in the restaurant? You might say, "No, but I know it's really fattening though." We all love food whether it be American, Chinese, Thai, Indian or Italian but the truth is we all love food especially tasty food with lots of Calories (notice the capital C meaning kcal, if you know your science). If we are not careful, too much calories can be detrimental towards our health. And one way to control the intake of the calories and fat is by knowing how much is in each serving especially in restaurants.

A restaurant menu has a variety of foods that ranges from mouth savoring appetizers to delicious sweet desserts. But, if we do not know how many calories are in each dish how are we going to control our weight? In today's society, we are getting fatter. There are more obese people than ever, and people with type II diabetes are skyrocketing. If we don't watch our weight and especially the weight of our children, our kids could be next on Shaq's Big Challenge or we will find ourselves on the Biggest Loser. Don't you want to see your lovely self on national television?

Just by having the facts on the menu opens our eyes. When we see 1000 calories on food we love, we realize just how fattening it is. We could be saying, "Wow, I never knew that it was so fattening, maybe that's why I'm not losing weight even after all the exercise." Remember, it's easy to gain weight but to lose weight you're going to have to work twice as hard. So by seeing such large numbers, it can make us think twice and change our mind if we actually want to order it or not.

Being required to list calories and the fat grams on menus does not hurt us it can only help us be conscious about our health. If we know that the dessert we want is high on calories, we can decide to order something healthier for our main course to balance it out. It's ultimately up to you if you want to take into account the calories but when you can see the nutrition facts you are bound to take notice even if you don't want to. And ladies, I'm sure you would love to see the nutrition facts if you constantly worry about how you look or if you still want to fit into your skinny jeans. Let's take action for a better, healthier future for ourselves and our children.

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