|
|
The Center for Obesity Research and Education (CORE) hosted Deputy Mayor of Health Donald Schwarz and Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown today as they signed into law a bill that will require all chain restaurants in Philadelphia to display the nutritional information of their food on its menus.
The new law, which was approved in November, will take effect Jan. 1, 2010, and will require all restaurants with 15 or more locations to list the calories, saturated fat, trans fat, carbohydrates and sodium of every item on their menus. Establishments that use menu boards only need to list the calories.
“Eating healthy is tough work. Providing consumers with calorie information at the point of purchase will help Philadelphians make the difficult work of weight control a bit easier,” said Gary Foster, Ph.D., director of CORE. |
Photo by Kelly & Massa
Harriet Lessy of the Center for the Science of Public Interest (left), shows CORE’s Gary Foster and Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown what a nutritional label would look like. New York City recently enacted a similar law requiring all chain restaurants to post nutritional labels on their menus.
|
| |
|
Similar programs are currently in place in New York City, and the California state government is reviewing a proposal. The Center for the Society of Public Interest, a consumer interest group, launched several educational efforts and awareness campaigns in those areas, and the group hopes to build on that momentum here in Philadelphia.
Foster, the immediate past-president of the Obesity Society, has been a champion of the menu labeling initiative since its inception in February of last year. He has worked closely with the Mayor’s office and testified in favor of the bill at a hearing held by the Committee on Public Health and Human Services last April. |
| |
Foster (left) worked closely with the mayor’s office and has been a champion of the menu labeling bill since Councilwoman Brown (center) called for the legislation almost 18 months ago. Deputy Mayor of Health Don Schwarz (right) praised CORE’s research on obesity education, treatment and prevention.
|
“Having the backing and support of researchers such as Dr. Gary Foster and his colleagues at Temple underscores the importance of this law, which will help everyone, most importantly children, because they and their caregivers will now eat with a greater awareness of what is healthy,” said Brown, who initially sponsored the bill.
CORE is a universitywide group of investigators dedicated to excellence in obesity research. Its mission is to promote interdisciplinary study of the etiology, consequences, treatment and prevention of obesity. Ongoing research ranges from basic science to epidemiology, with a particular focus on the causes, treatment and prevention of obesity among minorities of lower socioeconomic status, with whom obesity is more prevalent. |
|
|
|
|
|
