Questionnaire survey of the effect of calorie labelling on consumers' cold drink purchases

In their systematic review of the health impacts of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), Sturt and colleagues found no evidence of benefit in ‘weight challenged adults'.1 As GPs know only too well, obesity is a major health problem in the UK. The UK Department of Health recently launched the Responsibility Deal programme in which organisations pledged to provide calorie labelling on their products.2 In September 2012, for a medical student project, we conducted a confidential questionnaire survey of customers sitting in Eddie Wilson's café at St. George's, University of London, to investigate whether their choices of cold drinks were influenced by calorie labelling.

The response rate was 92% (92/100). The mean age of participants was 25 years (range 18 to 54) and 60% were female. They describe their ethnicity as white 55%, Asian 27%, black 11%, or other ethnic group 7%. On average the 37% (34/92) of responders who said they read the calorie content chose a lower calorie drink than those who didn't: mean (SD) calorie content 62.3 kcal (85.7) versus 103.2 kcal (83.7), P = 0.03. The 26% (24/92) of people who said they were influenced by the labelling chose even lower calorie options, often diet drinks or water: mean 27.3 kcal (55.3). On average women chose lower calorie drinks than men: 71.5 kcal (83.2) versus 112.8 kcal (85.5), P = 0.02. However there were no differences between the calorie content of drinks in people with BMI ≤25 and > 25 (based on reported height and weight).

A recent study suggested that in New York, US, a policy of banning super-sized sugar-sweetened drinks (>16 fl oz) in fast-food restaurants could reduce calorie consumption per consumer by 63 kcal (95% CI = 61 to 66).3 Similarly in England, enforcing a minimum price per unit of alcohol could help to reduce alcohol consumption. Around one-third of responders from our health education institution said they read the calorie labelling and were influenced in selecting a lower calorie drink. In contrast to NLP, where evidence is of limited quantity and quality,1 it is possible that changes in government policy could contribute towards tackling the obesity epidemic.

• © British Journal of General Practice 2013