4-in-10 US adults: They pay attention to menu calories

A little more than 4-in-10 U.S. adults say they pay a great deal or a fair amount of attention to nutritional information on restaurant menus, a survey says. Gallup's annual Consumption Habits survey, conducted July 10-14, was conducted just as some U.S. restaurants implemented a provision of the Affordable Care Act that required restaurant chains with 20 or more locations to list calorie information on menus and menu boards by 2014. Other restaurants added nutritional information to their menus prior to the Affordable Care Act's passage in 2010 to meet city or state requirements, to be transparent with their customers about the nutritional content of their food, or to respond to pressure from health groups, Gallup said. Forty-nine percent of women said they paid a great deal or a fair amount of attention to nutrition information on menus versus 36 percent of men. Young adults ages 18-29 were the age group least likely to say they pay attention to nutrition information, while college graduates paid more attention to nutrition labeling than those with some college or those with a high school diploma or less. Lower-income adults were less likely than middle- and higher-income Americans to pay attention to nutritional information, but there were relatively minor differences by race, Gallup said. The telephone survey involving 2,027 adults has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.