This cheesecake clocks in at 1,500 calories, 43 grams of saturated fat, and 21 teaspoons of sugar
A slice of Reese's Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake Cheesecake. Reuters/Dominick Reuter

Using graphics such as images of traffic lights may be as effective as displaying numbers in helping diners eat right and consume less calories, a new study reveals. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University suggest that apart from displaying calorie information in the form of numbers, another popular way to do it is through a graphical representation of a green, yellow or red traffic light.

The study, which appeared in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, provides the most promising evidence to date that making available calorie information, either through numbers or icons, encourages diners to take in fewer calories. To determine the effectiveness of numbers and traffic lights, the team conducted a field experiment with employees at Humana, a large health-care company.

The participants, who were divided into two groups, were asked to place lunch orders through an online platform designed especially for the study. A control group was given no calorie information, while in the experimental group, employees were given either the number of calories, a traffic light indicating the approximate number of calories, or both. According to the study's authors, they found that both methods resulted in food choices that contained 10 percent fewer calories.

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, requires most chain restaurants to state the number of calories that each menu item contains. Giving calorie information to consumers will help them make better decisions when it comes to food choices, says the FDA. In Europe, nutrition labels on packaged food will become mandatory in December 2016. However, the research team notes that although providing calorie information in the form of numbers may seem like the best option, policymakers should consider that not all consumers are adept at interpreting numbers. "For those consumers, traffic light labels can communicate basic 'eat this, not that' information regardless of their understanding of the underlying nutrients or ability to use numeric information," the study's authors say.

In April 2013, a study conducted by researchers from Texas Christian University revealed that providing information on calorie content alone does not lead to fewer calories ordered or consumed. According to researchers, a new angle for encouraging reduced calorie intake in restaurants is displaying on the menu the minutes of exercise needed to burn food calories. Their study, which involved 300 men and women, suggested that the menu displaying the minutes of brisk walking needed to burn food calories led to fewer calories ordered and consumed compared with the menu without calorie labels. They noted that there was no difference between the menu with calorie labels and the menu without this information in the number of calories ordered and consumed by the participants.

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