Sitting in a restaurant waiting to order, you may see a bunch of numbers on the side of your menu that may read out 300, 600 or even 1200! Don’t be alarmed, these hopefully aren’t the prices of your meal, but are instead the calorie information for your food.

Becoming a common sight in many eating establishments, calorie-counts on menus aim to make people more aware about the kinds of food they are eating. By publishing the amount of calories within a certain meal, government health officials hope this can make it easier for people to maintain a healthier lifestyle.

Just last year, President Barack Obama issued a new law requiring all big restaurant chains such as McDonald’s, Starbucks and Burger King to put calorie information on their menus and drive-through signs in an effort to curb American obesity.

However, according to articles by Time Magazine and the NY Daily News, calorie-counting doesn’t seem to affect a person’s food choices.  The NY Daily News, found through a survey with calorie-counts present, that customers still got the unhealthier choice even though 22 percent of them believed that calorie-counts influenced their decisions.

According to the U.S. Department of Health, an average American male between the ages of 18 and 30 should eat around 2,400 calories while a woman between those same ages should eat around 2,000 calories a day. However, despite these guidelines, the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization has found out that the average American consumes up to 3,790 calories a day. Does the publishing of calorie information in our menus really make a difference?

Intrigued by these findings, I decided to ask some Fordham students what they thought about these results and whether they thought calorie information on menus was useful to them.

“Counting calories is unnecessary,” Vanessa Camacho, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’12, said. “I think people equate low-calorie with good and higher-calorie with bad, when in reality the issue at hand is how active the American public is.”

However, others believe being informed about the amount of calories in food along with other things can be useful. “I think calorie-counting in moderation is a good idea because it can prevent you from eating fatty foods that could be harmful to your body,” Ashley Sipos-Phelan, FCLC ’13, said.

“I do count calories but I’m not as obsessed with it as I was during my high school years,” Madeline Rivera, FCLC ’12, said. “I almost feel like it’s just natural for me to do it. But I think it’s more important to consider the saturated fat content of foods and definitely exercise.”

“Not everyone will be looking at the label, but I try not to have processed foods—no fast food or anything. But I do believe if you don’t know the terms, you can be left in the dark,” Kristin Gidlund, FCLC ’12, said.

“I think labels help people see what is really in their food and what they’re really consuming in order for them to make healthier choices,” Sipos-Phelan said.

Other students tended to believe that there were other ways of becoming healthy rather than constantly counting their calories.

“It’s about changing your lifestyle and moderation because calorie-counting ends up making food unappetizing,” Camacho said.

“I don’t really count calories but I do try to be conscious of how much food I put into my body as opposed to how much I burn off,” Katarina O’Regan, FCLC ’12, said. “If I’m eating something with nutrition facts, I’ll check for calories and if the menu lists calories, that does have an effect on my choice.”

Although there is always a possibility that calorie labeling will benefit many Americans, it is clear from numerous sources that Americans are still continuing to eat unhealthy foods. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see if calorie-counts do have a long-term impact on American health, but at the moment, calorie-counts don’t seem to be working.