by James Zipadelli

Created on: June 11, 2009

I love to eat out. However, chain restaurants in Connecticut should be required to include calories on their menus. The restaurant industry has three primary arguments against posting how many calories they have. First, some of them do post calorie counts - on their Web sites. Second, posting calorie counts will drive away business, and in a difficult economy, nobody wants to chance that. Third, people choose to go into the restaurant to eat their food. It's not the restaurant's fault that what they eat is unhealthy. All three arguments have valid points, but the restaurants miss the broader good that posting calorie counts will do.

First, we have an obesity epidemic and we all have to share responsibility for this, including the restaurant chains. According to the American Heart Association, among adults 20 years old and older, 142 million Americans are overweight, and of those, about two thirds are obese. Obese refers to someone who has a body mass index (BMI) of above 30 percent. If these people knew how many calories they were consuming, most of them would make healthier eating choices.

Most people run into a restaurant to get something "to go" in five minutes before, during or after work. Let's suppose I went into McDonald's and got a hamburger, small fries and small Coke. A McDonald's hamburger has 250 calories, 9 grams of fat and 3.5 grams of saturated fat. A small french fries has 230 calories, 11 grams of fat and 1.5 grams of saturated fat. A small Coke has 150 calories. So I've just consumed 630 calories, 20 grams of fat and 5 grams of saturated fat. In the time that it took me just to find the total number of calories and fat on the McDonald's Web site, I would have already consumed that meal. I've even been in some McDonald's restaurants where they put the calories of the hamburger on the wrapper. Makes sense, right? Wrong. I am hungry and crumble up the wrapper as I gobble down my hamburger. Then, I realize that, "wow, this was 250 calories? It didn't taste like it." By then, it's too late. In order to have people make healthier eating choices, it's best to put the calorie counts in large, clear lettering on the menu. With work, children and other responsibilities, few customers are going to calculate their calorie intake from a Web site.

Second, chain restaurants do not post the calories in the food because they are afraid with a down economy, they will lose business. It's tough to know how much business they would have had anyway with a down

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