Get calorie labels off the menu

I HAVE never been in favour of the new calorie labelling in restaurants: it is a gesture policy that wasn’t proven to help those with obesity, and is harmful to anyone in recovery from an eating disorder. So I was pleased to see a report last week questioning its effectiveness. A study by Cambridge University suggests that nannying in this way, and telling you how much you’ll need to walk to burn off a meal, has absolutely no effect on calories consumed. We do need to sort out obesity and offer evidence-based prevention and treatment, but this clearly isn’t the way to do it. I just hope the Government takes notice.