Remember the cries from the Food Police about the need to force restaurants to post calorie counts on menus? Well, calorie-count policies don’t change behavior, yet the policies live on. Just take a look at this statement from a Health Affairs magazine abstract. The study is about an alternative idea to offer customers the option of ordering a smaller portion. It is optional — which means the nanny-staters won’t like it — but it appears to lead to fewer calories consumed. So will cities stop forcing restaurants to post calories?

Policies that mandate calorie labeling in fast-food and chain restaurants have had little or no observable impact on calorie consumption to date. In three field experiments, we tested an alternative approach: activating consumers’ self-control by having servers ask customers if they wanted to downsize portions of three starchy side dishes at a Chinese fast-food restaurant. We consistently found that 14–33 percent of customers accepted the downsizing offer, and they did so whether or not they were given a nominal twenty-five-cent discount.