Should restaurants be required to list calories and fat grams on their menus?

Should restaurants be required to list calories and fat grams on their menus?

The idea of making the restaurants required to list calories and fat grams on their menus is fantastic.

Hitherto they have been exhibiting the price list of the food items on their menu. As and when there is any increase in the price of any food item they will make a change in the menu card to that effect.

Now it is the modern age of diseases. People have variety of diseases like diabetes, blood pressure, heart disease, kidney ailments, skin diseases, a variety of cancers and scores of other diseases. Some decades ago, we have not heard such proliferation and variety of diseases. As science and technology grows, new fields of research grow, new inventions grow in number. Similarly, in populous countries like India and China with the growth of population exponentially, their ailments and a variety of new diseases have grown in number. Even youngsters, below the age of 30 have diabetes and in western countries like US and Canada, children as well as adults are becoming obese as they increasingly becoming addicts to junk foods.

Ever since Michale Jacobson has coined the term junk food in the year 1972, junk foods are on the rise. Especially, in restaurants, junk foods are available in plenty for they are easy to manufacture and low in their manufacturing cost as well. But we are aware that junk foods like potato chips, candy and chocolate etc are very rich in fat and carbohydrate contents and are high in calorie content but with very little nutrition value.

The present day generation is in a dilemma how to avoid junk food and especially how to avoid the craze for junk foods among the children and how to turn junk food addicts to normalcy. Therefore we are actually constrained to make a sustained campaign against junk food to spread awareness among the children as well as adults.

Therefore, under the circumstances mentioned above, it is a very good idea to require the restaurants to list calories and fat grams on the menu card, so that people can easily identify the junk food and thereby eschew them when they go to restaurants. But restaurants may hesitate to make such a list because people will easily avoid fatty and calorie rich food, which are easy to prepare and also have a chance of making easy money.

However, in the interests of public welfare as well in the interest of the nation, because healthy people are the assets of a nation, the restaurants should be ordered to make such lists available. Besides, as far as the restaurants are concerned, the preparation of such list is only a onetime work but not a repetitive one.

When such a list of calories and fat contents are made available, it will not only be helpful to create awareness about junk foods but also will be helpful to the people who are obese and suffering from other diseases like diabetes, hypertension , dental problems and cancer etc.

Therefore, restaurants should be required to list calories and fat grams on their menus immediately since it is a welcome idea.