Drs. Todor Mijanovich and Beth Weitzman along with colleagues published two papers on the impacts of calorie labels in fast food venues.
The first paper, published in Appetite titled "Estimating the impacts of calorie labels in fast-food settings using a novel comparison: Comparing California drive-through and in-store purchases", investigates the effect of displaying calorie labels at fast-food restaurants in California by comparing drive-through to in-store purchases with calorie information. The results found no significant impact on calorie reduction from displaying labels at the time of purchase, suggesting they did not lead to behavioral change and highlighting the need for stronger labeling policies.
Read the paper in the Appetite journal
The second paper, published in Obesity titled "Relationship between community characteristics and impact of calorie labeling on fast-food purchases", evaluated the impact of calorie labeling on fast-food purchases at 2,329 Taco Bell restaurants, while considering neighborhood characteristics like income, ethnicity, and urbanicity. They found that calorie labeling resulted in a slight decrease in the number of calories people purchased across most groups, except for those living in rural areas.