Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
Turns out it’s possible to make a fast-food lunch a bit more healthful even without skipping the fries.
New York City now has hard evidence that its ban on trans fat in restaurant food made a meaningful dent in people’s consumption of the artery clogger and wasn’t just replaced with another bad fat.
The findings by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene being published today have implications beyond heart health, suggesting another strategy to curb the nation’s obesity epidemic fueled by a high-calorie, super-sized environment.
Consider: Americans get more than a third of their daily calories from foods prepared outside the home. By year’s end, the Food and Drug Administration hopes to finalize long-awaited rules that would make many restaurant chains post the calorie counts of their products right on the menu. Maybe the guilt would make you forgo the french fries for a salad. Maybe not.
Now contrast New York’s trans-fat ban — later copied by more than a dozen other state and local governments — which didn’t put all the onus on the consumer to do the right thing.
“By making the default option the healthier choice,” everyone benefits regardless of their nutrition awareness or willpower, Alice Lichtenstein, a nutrition specialist at Tufts University, wrote in a commentary on the research. “The regulation may serve as a model for future successful public- health initiatives.”