Our country is facing an economic crisis and we're all aflutter about that. But meanwhile, what about the U.S. obesity crisis?* Obesity and the diseases associated with it--heart disease, diabetes, and stroke--top the charts among the 5 leading causes of death, and yet we're not getting those numbers drummed into our heads every day like we are the Dow Jones.

So what about the "extra cargo" that afflicts so many of us? Would it do any good, do you think, to put nutritional and calorie labels on restaurant menus?

Without food labels on restaurant menus, American consumers trying to lose weight are left to their own devices when dining out. They, and no one else, must determine how the eatery prepares its dishes and how many calories are concealed within the luscious entrée they're about to eat.

Research done years ago revealed that even registered dietitians who are dining out, when asked to estimate the calories in a dish they're eating, may sometimes be off by as much as 1/3 or more. So what's the average Joe, who knows zilch about nutrition and diet, to do?

A new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that if the cook were to provide nutritional information right along with the meal, the practice could change the eating habits of U.S. consumers. For example, one finding from this study was that participants who ate a particular sandwich and then learned later that it had contained many more calories than they imagined, would cut back on snacks for the rest of the day.

Could this be a step in the right direction? Would displaying the fat and calorie content of restaurant dishes help us to pass up some snacks, particularly those full of processed or empty calories, and to get back to 3 "squares" a day?

The study authors also found that when subjects learned, at the time of a meal, that a food was higher in calories than expected, they were less likely to order it because of the higher risk for developing heart disease or gaining weight. This held true even if the dish was advertised as "low-calorie" on the menu--the customers believed the nutritional information.

This whole subject of putting nutrition labeling beside all the items on restaurant menus is a hot topic these days, but it's a topic that is rife with questions about how such a system would work. Would restaurant staff adhere to the recipes? Or would items sometimes be labeled falsely, resulting in other discrepancies? Are menu labels worth a try?

Readers, how would you like to see nutrition labels on all menu items? Would they affect what you order?