Do you know how many calories you eat?

NYC made the news recently when it decided that certain restaurants would be required to post nutrition info, including calorie content, on their foods. The theory is that if we only knew the Big Mac and large fries we crave contain 1110 calories, we would order a hamburger and small fries, at only 500 calories, instead.

I doubt the calorie content makes much difference to the vast majority of people.

Everybody knows that fast food, fried foods, sugary foods, and snack foods are high in calories. We all know that the bigger the burger the higher the calories. Ask anyone, and they'll tell you that a piece of fruit has fewer calories than even a small order of fries.

Nutrition information is on every package of food we purchase, yet that doesn't stop most people from eating far more calories than they need. If we truly want to stem the tide of obesity, it will take more than information labels.

- We need to put more advertising dollars into healthy foods, and less into junk food.
- The government should subsidize the cost of healthy foods like fruit and vegetables instead of the components in high calorie foods like sugar and fat.
- Employees need more than a 15 minute lunch break.
- Every town and community should have sidewalks and bike paths in areas where people actually want to go.

I bet each of you reading this can add one or two items to this list, and we'd get more results than simply posting calorie information.