Marion Nestle writing at The Atlantic continues to try and widen the food regulation Overton window. The target this time is portion sizes:
For a long time, I’ve wanted restaurant owners to give a price break for smaller portions. No luck. They say this would put them out of business. We need to make it easier for people to choose smaller portions, which means changes in public policy.
Does this mean subsidies for smaller portions? A government agency to regulate prices for relative portion sizes? A small plate mandate? Whatever Marion has is mind, it is a terrible idea.
Notice the familiar tactic of trying to sell this is more “choice”. Who doesn’t love more choice? It’s pro-freedom!
There appears to be no dimension of food that the government shouldn’t be regulating. This apparently includes a food’s color, the amount of salt or sugar, how it is advertised, what goes on the box, and now the portion size. Can’t we skip all this piecemeal regulation and just create a new government agency that must approve all foods before they can be sold? Let’s place Marion in charge, or at least put her in charge of the restaurant menu approval division.
This is becoming difficult to parody. Perhaps it would be easier to parody if I could sample more paternalist writings, but there are so many paternalists and their writings can often be too long. What we need is a government mandate for writers to provide a shorter version of every article they write. Studies have shown people are more willing to read one paragraph of regulatory overreach than several paragraphs of it. And after all, it will improve consumer choice.
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Friday ~ March 2nd, 2012 at 10:05 am
DJAnyReason
The title of this post reads like a parody. Unfortunately, the logic in the body of the post doesn’t display much more in the way of thought or seriousness.
Friday ~ March 2nd, 2012 at 10:07 am
Joe
Is it really “more chioce” if you’re forcing restaurants to do it?
Restaurants are missing a big opportunity here though. This study shows that people don’t need a lower price to select a smaller portion. I know that’s true for me. Of course, you can always order a big meal and take half home, but people are people and if you put something in front of them they’ll eat it.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/31/2/399.abstract
Friday ~ March 2nd, 2012 at 10:12 am
fmtrading
For smaller meal size order from the entree menu only.
Next problem, please?
Friday ~ March 2nd, 2012 at 10:21 am
XVO
It really is a terrible idea. We must protect people from themselves! I can just imagine her looking out at the world from her Ivory Tower. “I read in the paper today that the little people are becoming obese! Something must be done!”
Have you heard the one about trying to make ex-cons a protected class that can’t be “discriminated” against in the workplace? It’ll hurt their feelings and self esteem don’t you know.
Friday ~ March 2nd, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Russell Conner
We are from the government, and we are here to help…
Friday ~ March 2nd, 2012 at 12:58 pm
bdbd
Another way to end up with smaller portion size is to take have the food ordered home for another meal, which I do from time to time, but not often enough. That said, many restaurant portions are absurdly large.
Friday ~ March 2nd, 2012 at 1:48 pm
Max
Maybe it’s my imagination, but I think minimum restaurant portions have actually been shrinking, in order to maintain some items at the psychologically important $1 level.
Friday ~ March 2nd, 2012 at 3:08 pm
ed
It’s interesting; as Charles Murray tells us, the elites don’t seem to really mind too much that the lower classes are having babies out of wedlock. What they really can’t stand about the plebes is all those disgusting fat people.
Friday ~ March 2nd, 2012 at 3:39 pm
Rafael
This is getting to be ridiculous. Perhaps this is my false perception, but the world is littered with intellectuals who want to use the government’s legislative power to create their ideal world.
Just eat at a restaurant that serves smaller portions at lower rates. They do exist seeing as I have been to them! Personally, the larger the portions the better! She could also stop writing and open a restaurant that is designed in such a way. That may be too much work thought, better have the government do it instead.
Friday ~ March 2nd, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Michelle
Most public policy is social engineering in one form or another, and “intellectuals” certainly don’t have the market cornered on it.
Some proposals are just far more amusing than others.
Friday ~ March 2nd, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Gary Hewitt
Wow. People are quite hostile and willing to assume the worst of anyone who suggests that choices may not always be rational. Must be a crowd of economists.
The premise is that public health would be served if people ate less, which I think is a reasonable premise given the health consequences of obesity.
I really didn’t read the nanny in the article. Rather it seems oriented to a market solution to an informational problem. A few observations:
First – the author never suggests regulation of portion sizes;
Second – the author understands that restaurants cannot offer price incentives for smaller portions and so does not suggest mandating this either
Third – much of the first part of the article is about people’s awareness of the portion size they have.
So education is the point – and the public policy that I think she’s contemplating in the last paragraph is the calorie information that we’ve started seeing in some places (my country in Maryland for one). That creates market demand rather than mandating portion size or even mandating restaurants to do anything other than tell how much they’re giving you. That “makes it easier” to choose smaller portion sizes – but doesn’t make anyone do anything.
With that information, restaurants might actually be able to increase their margins (I’m sure Cold Stone makes more selling me a 4 oz. small ice cream for only 2 cents less than the 10 oz large) – that’s 6 oz of ice ream, maybe a buck of pure margin for them. They can provide information to meet people’s preferences with no disadvantage relative to competition since everyone has to do it.
Seems like a winner. What am I missing?
Friday ~ March 2nd, 2012 at 6:18 pm
Gepap
An infantile hatred of rules and the unwillingess to challenge your own orthodoxy.
Saturday ~ March 3rd, 2012 at 12:13 am
George
Depends. If posting calorie counts is really what the author meant by “public policy solution”, that may be fine, but what if calorie counts are posted and the behavior of both consumers and firms fails to change? Will the author and her paternalist ilk shrug their shoulders and say “I guess people want to consume lots of calories”? Or will that just prove that we need more public policy solutions? The problem is that most of the cost of a restaurant meal is not in the raw materials. It’s the labor of both cooks and servers, the rent for the building and the utilities. Many people do want large portions when they eat out, so restaurants design their menu to please the largest possible number of customers. Customers have the option of taking some of their meal to go if they don’t want to finish it in one sitting. Also, some people make he decision to *gasp* eat a little more than would be optimal from a health standpoint. Eating healthy, working out and looking great are really important to some people, but those things are less important to others. Some people willingly and knowingly sacrifice those things because they like to eat big, delicious meals. There’s nothing morally wrong with that decision.