Noticing and Responding to Calorie Labels on Restaurant Menus: Patterns in Sexual-Minority Men

A calorie-labeling policy for restaurant menus was implemented in 2018. Whether and how sexual-minority men use this information has not been evaluated.

The Men's Body Project, a 2020 cross-sectional survey study of 504 cisgender sexual-minority men (mean age=35.8±10.4 years, 71.0% White, 5.6% Asian, 14.3% Black, 9.1% another/multiple race identities) assessed respondents' awareness of calorie labels on restaurant menus and subsequent responses. Additional questions were asked about weight-change goals, body image, disordered eating behaviors, and muscle-enhancing supplement use. Analyses in 2022-2023 used multivariate logistic regression to assess the associations between noticing calories and weight- and muscularity-oriented behaviors and, among those who noticed calorie labels, whether participants reported using this information to order more or fewer calories.

Approximately half of the participants reported noticing calorie labels. Those who did were more likely to report engaging in disordered eating behaviors (OR=2.03). Among participants who noticed menu labels, ordering fewer calories was the most frequent response, whereas 25% reported not changing the caloric content of their order. Many participants (21%) reported ordering both more and fewer calories, and this heterogeneous ordering pattern was associated with both disordered eating (OR=4.70) and muscle-enhancing behaviors (OR=9.42) compared with that among participants who did not report behaviors. Reporting weight-control efforts was associated with ordering fewer calories than participants not doing anything to change their weight (OR=2.53).

Most participants noticed calorie labels on menus, and many reported subsequently ordering fewer calories. Disordered eating and muscle-enhancing behaviors were associated with behavior changes in response to calorie information.