Calorie Changes in Large Chain Restaurants: Declines in New Menu Items but Room for Improvement.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Large chain restaurants reduced the number of calories in newly introduced menu items in 2013 by about 60 calories (or 12%) relative to 2012. This paper describes trends in calories available in large U.S. chain restaurants to understand whether previously documented patterns persist.

Methods

Data (a census of items for included restaurants) were obtained from the MenuStat project. This analysis included 66 of the 100 largest U.S. restaurants that are available in all three of the data years (2012-2014; N=23,066 items). Generalized linear models were used to examine: (1) per-item calorie changes from 2012 to 2014 among items on the menu in all years; and (2) mean calories in new items in 2013 and 2014 compared with items on the menu in 2012 only. Data were analy

SUBMITTER: Bleich SN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4691555 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature