FDA report urges restaurants to help fight obesity

WASHINGTON – In the fight against obesity, restaurants should shrink portions, provide more nutritional information and bundle such calorie-laden food as burgers and pizza with healthier side dishes, according to a federally commissioned report to be made public Friday.

The report, requested and funded by the Food and Drug Administration, lays out ways to help consumers manage their intake of calories from restaurants, cafeterias and ready-to-eat meals bought at grocery stores. It does not address school meals.

“As of this decade, Americans are eating away-from-home foods more frequently and consuming more calories from away-from-home establishments than ever before,” the report says in making the case for increasing the availability of foods and drinks packed with fewer calories but more nutrients.

The 136-page report prepared by The Keystone Center, a nonprofit policy group, does not explicitly link dining out with the rising tide of obesity, but it does cite numerous studies that suggest there is a connection. It also notes that Americans now consume fully one-third of their daily intake of calories outside the home. And as of 2000, the average American gobbled up and slurped down 300 more calories a day than was the case 15 years earlier, according to Agriculture Department statistics cited in the report.

Today, 64 percent of Americans are overweight, including the 30 percent who are obese, according to the report. It pegs the annual medical cost of the problem at nearly $93 billion.

Restaurants increasingly are offering varied portion sizes, foods made with whole grains, more diet drinks and entree salads to fit the dietary needs of their customers, said Sheila Cohn, director of nutrition policy for the National Restaurant Association. But those restaurants can’t make people eat what they don’t want to, said Cohn, who contributed to the forum that produced the report. Other participants included government officials, academics and consumer advocates.

The report encourages restaurants to shift the emphasis of their marketing to lower-calorie choices and include more of those on menus. In addition, restaurants could jigger portion sizes and the variety of foods available in mixed dishes to reduce the overall number of calories taken in by diners.

Bundling meals with more fruits and vegetables also could improve nutrition. And letting consumers know how many calories are contained in a meal also could guide the choices they make, according to the report. Just over half of the nation’s 287 largest restaurant chains now make at least some nutrition information available, said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.