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That little nudge can add up to a fairly big impact

“It’s not rocket science,” said Prof. Hammond. “It lets people say ‘I didn’t know that, I’m going to get a slightly smaller size, I’m going to cut out my dessert.’ … Because we eat more and more outside the home, that little nudge can add up to a fairly big impact at the population level.”

The final report of the project — largely funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada — is due to be completed later this month.

Meanwhile, chain restaurants in the United States will soon be forced to exhibit calorie counts on their menus under federal legislation there, and already must do so in six American states and some cities.

Ontario has promised to do the same for calories and possibly other information.

The federal government, however, is showing little inclination to regulate. Sylwia Krzyszton, a spokeswoman for the Public Health Agency, would say only that analysis of the research it paid for is ongoing.

A representative of the Canadian restaurant sector argued it would be impractical for commercial eateries to duplicate the menu labelling implemented by the Ottawa hospital, and argued the initiative brought about only modest changes, anyway.

There isn’t room on fast-food menu boards to provide a range of different nutritional numbers, and displaying only calories is not what consumers want, argues Garth Whyte, CEO of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservice Association.

Instead, his members have committed to follow the voluntary Informed Dining program in B.C., where restaurants display a logo indicating they will provide nutritional information on demand, or on websites or smart phone apps.