Can nutrition menu labelling positively influence consumer food choices? A review of the literature

Overweight and obesity has become an increasing issue around the world; particularly in the UK and the US. An increased tendency of consuming away-from-home foods is one of the factors contributing to this problem. Some researchers and government campaigners believe that menu labelling could help people make healthier and more informed choices when eating out. This article aims to review existing literature regarding the UK and US to analyse possible effects that menu labelling can have on diners’ choices and provides suggestions on how to improve the effectiveness of labelling. The review of the literature shows that menu labelling can improve some consumers' food choices, facilitate informed decisions and increase individual’s health concerns. However, labelling has limited effects on improving the choices of those consumers who eat out more frequently or are overweight. Labelling is also believed to lack accuracy when dishes are modified to cater for individual needs, and present only limited nutritional information. Suggestions to improve nutritional labelling on menus include: providing more comprehensive public education on nutrition and labelling, proposals of unified legislation and simplifying nutritional menu labelling by adding coloured symbols and arranging menu items in order of calorie value.