Statement in support of Massachusetts Menu Labeling regulations

May 12, 2009

 

Corporate Accountability International applauds Governor Deval Patrick, Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach, and the Massachusetts Public Health Council for “Valuing [the] Meal” by supporting important protections for Massachusetts fast food patrons in the form of restaurant menu labeling. 

 

At a time when rates of childhood obesity and diet-related disease are soaring, fast food corporations should be providing accurate nutritional information about the content of their highly-profitable, yet largely unhealthy, products. And they should be doing so not just through hard-to-find web pages and in-store brochures. Labeling is an important tool to help manage - or to prevent - chronic illnesses like diabetes.  This is the first state-wide regulation to provide strong protections for fast-food patrons, and a true victory for public health.

 

Unfortunately, the fast food industry is spending enormous sums to push weaker federal menu labeling legislation that undermines Massachusetts’ advances.  The industry aims to pre-empt strong local regulations with a much weaker, industry-supported law. This law, the “LEAN Act,” would allow these transnational corporations to hide nutritional information far away from where studies show that people most need it – directly on the menu boards.

 

Corporate Accountability International is calling on fast food giants to Value [the] Meal over short-term profits; to stop interfering in local, state and national efforts that protect the consumer’s right to know. McDonald’s and other fast food corporations should also call on their trade association, the National Restaurant Association, to stop working at cross-purposes with public health by pushing passage of legislation like the “LEAN Act.” 

 

As our children increasingly get sick and at younger and younger ages from diets high in unhealthy foods like fast food , Congress should be working on national labeling standards that provide a foundation not a roadblock to strong local and state labeling requirements, like those proposed here in Massachusetts.

  
Click here to read the full language of the regulation.