Higher-Calorie Menu Items Eliminated in Large Chain Restaurants

Area of Science:

• Nutrition Science
• Public Health
• Food Service Research

Background:

• Large chain restaurants have focused on reducing calories in new menu offerings.
• Previous research has not investigated the calorie content of menu items that are eliminated.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the calorie content of menu items that were dropped versus those that remained on menus in large chain restaurants.
• To analyze calorie differences between new menu items that were kept and those that were removed.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from the MenuStat project (2012-2015), encompassing 27,238 items from 66 major U.S. chain restaurants.
• Compared mean calories of items present throughout the study period versus those removed after 2012.
• Compared mean calories of new items introduced in 2013-2014 that were retained versus those that were dropped.

Main Results:

• Items removed from menus contained significantly more calories (71 kcal higher, p=0.02) than items that remained.
• Newer items that were subsequently removed were also higher in calories (52 kcal more, p=0.04) than new items that stayed on the menu.

Conclusions:

• Menu items discontinued by chain restaurants are substantially higher in calories compared to those that persist.
• Removing high-calorie options from restaurant menus offers a public health strategy to reduce population calorie intake.
• This strategy bypasses the need for individual behavior change, which is often difficult to modify.