A study published in the BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health looks at calorie labelling and takeaway food choices.
Prof Amelia Lake, Professor of Public Health Nutrition, Teesside University, said:
“The complexity of trying to make highly accessible, highly palatable, high fat, high salt, high sugar food healthier.
“This analysis is helpful as it illustrates how unlikely people are to check calorie labelling but may find a traffic light system more useful.
“As the takeaway food environment expands before our eyes with the rise and rise of the digital food environment, these findings are very important in a real world setting.
“As with all surveys, there are limitations to this research – namely those under 35 and males – but largely this is a very helpful piece of research to think about how we make healthier choices easier for people who are ordering online takeaway food.”
Prof Amanda Daley, Professor of Behavioural Medicine and an NIHR Research Professor in Public Health, Loughborough University, said:
“Takeaways are an important focus for research of this kind because takeaway orders are typically very high in calories. However, this is a small observational study, so it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions from the findings. The results are not surprising either given that people often order takeaways as a treat, where they are less likely to want to focus on the number of calories in their order.
“We have known for some time that calorie labelling alone has only a small impact of the decisions people make about what food to purchase. One reason for this is calorie information is just a number and there is no meaning or context to this information. We need to find other ways of expressing to the public what calories mean for them. Regarding takeaways specifically, often people order takeaways as a treat where they are less likely to want to focus on the number of calories in their order. The problem here however is that takeaways are often very high in calories.”
Prof Fiona Gillison, a chartered member of the British Psychological Society, said:
“This study’s large and diverse sample, along with its clear focus on takeaway outlets, offers useful insight into calorie labelling in the UK. It suggests that calorie labels in takeaway food can reduce the number of calories ordered for a minority of people, which scaled up to the whole population could make it a useful tool alongside other public health initiatives.
“However, the study relies on people’s self-reports of their behaviour which has its limitations in terms of memory and social desirability, so there is still a case for more objective measurement of people’s behaviour in response to calorie labelling.
“As always, we should balance the potential for benefit for people trying to reduce their weight with the potential for harm for those with eating disorders.”
Rachel Richardson, Acting Head of Methods Support, The Cochrane Collaboration, said:
“The up-to-date evidence on the effectiveness of calorie labelling is best represented by a recent review from The Cochrane Collaboration, published in January 2025. The review examined evidence from 25 studies and concluded that calorie labels in supermarkets, restaurants and other food outlets led to a small reduction in the calories people selected and purchased. Importantly, the studies included 18 randomised controlled trials and most were conducted in real-world field settings. The authors concluded that the cumulative effect at a population level could make a meaningful contribution to public health.
“The findings from this study published in BMJ Nutrition, Prevention and Health seem to suggest that calorie labelling rarely influences food choices when ordering a takeaway. However, it is important to interpret these findings with caution.
“Firstly, the study reports the results from a survey of a small number of people – 1,040, and only 235 people responded to the question about the impact of calorie information. It also seems as if the sample for the survey may not be representative of the general UK population – for example 46% reported ordering takeaway once every two weeks or more and younger people and men were underrepresented in the sample.
“Secondly, participants were asked if they noticed calorie information the last time they ordered takeaway food online and only 23% did. However, smaller businesses are not required to provide calorie information on menus, so it may be that some menus did not include any calorie information.
“Lastly, this study does not measure people’s actual behaviour and only reports on what people say they will do or have done. Such data are not a reliable measure of real-world behaviour.
“In summary, there is some interesting information in this study – particularly the comments made by participants on healthy eating, but the most reliable evidence on the effectiveness of calorie labelling comes from thorough and systematic reviews of multiple well-conducted studies, such as the recent publication from The Cochrane Collaboration.”
Dr Amanda Avery, Associate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Nottingham, said:
Context summary:
“The research, led by researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), University of Reading and University of Exeter, looked at the impact of mandatory calorie labelling on take-away choice.
“Calorie labelling was mandated from April 2022 for large out of home food businesses across England, including restaurants, cafes and takeaways. As well as listing the calories for each food item, menus also need to include a statement of the recommended daily calorie intake.
“The researchers surveyed 1,040 adults living in England who had reported buying takeaways at least once in the past 12 months. Over a quarter of the sample (27%) reported having takeaways weekly or more often and a further 41% reported having takeaways every two weeks to once a month
Comments:
“This is a reasonably representative sample of adult consumers of take-aways and over a quarter were consuming take-aways at least once per week. The results very clearly demonstrate that taste and price are the most important factors for adults in England deciding which takeaway to order, while healthiness and low carbon footprint are the least important – equally so. The majority (77%) of respondents did not notice any calorie information during their most recent online takeaway purchase. Of those who did, most said it did not affect their food choices. When asked questions on recommended energy content, very few correctly identified the recommended 600kcal content for a meal.
“Whilst fewer young adults responded to the survey, those who did and were under the age of 35 were more than twice as likely to order takeaways weekly or more often than those who were older. Notably individuals with overweight or obese BMI category levels were also found to be twice as likely to have weekly or more frequent takeaways compared to those with healthy or underweight BMI scores. But one of the study limitations is that weight and height were self-reported and not all participants reported their weight and height. Thus this finding could be an over- or under-reporting.
“It would definitely be good to know why calorie labels are not being noticed or taken into account when adults are choosing take-aways and why so many are ordering take-aways so frequently. Having a tasty take-away that exceeds calorie recommendations would not matter so much if people consume take-aways less frequently.
“Future studies need to include more men and people aged under 35 years.
“The research also asked for ideas from participants. Participants suggested that a traffic light system might be more helpful than calorie labelling in guiding choices.
“The mandatory calorie labelling probably has had limited impact on out-of-the home food choices, including take-away choices but that is not to say that it is not helpful as part of a wider public healthy strategy to try and help reduce levels of obesity across England.
“The helpful take-away messages from this research are that people could be guided to make healthier, quick and easy fake-aways at home and if people do choose to have a take-away, healthier options need to be available that are tasty and cheaper.”
Dr Tom Jewell, Senior Lecturer in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, said:
“These interesting findings suggest that calorie information has a limited influence on takeaway choices for consumers in England. A limitation of the study is that it is a survey, so people have to recall their decision-making choices and report them. This introduces some degree of bias, as food choices may have been made days or even weeks ago. Also, the authors were not able to provide data on the participants’ ethnicity, which is unfortunate, as it would be interesting to understand any potential impact of ethnicity on takeaway choices.”
‘Calorie labelling and other drivers of takeaway food choices’ by Laura Cornelsen et al. was published in the BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health at 23:30 UK time on Tuesday 12 August 2025.
DOI: 10.1136/bmjnph-2025-001268
Declared interests
Prof Amelia Lake: “Amelia is Deputy Director of Fuse the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health and is Professor of Public Health Nutrition at Teesside University.
Amelia sits on the scientific committee of the British Nutrition Foundation and is an executive for Nutrition North (Northern Health Science Alliance).
She has no industry CoIs.”
Prof Amanda Daley: “I conduct research in a similar field to the research and have no conflicts of interest to declare.”
Rachel Richardson: “I am an employee of The Cochrane Collaboration, but was not involved in the recent review.”
Dr Amanda Avery: “Besides academic position (Programme Director for Master of Nutrition & Dietetics & MSc Clinical Nutrition, Associate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the Division of food, Nutrition & Dietetics at the University of Nottingham), Amanda holds a position as Consultant dietitian in weight management at Slimming World.”
Dr Tom Jewell: “My conflict of interest is that I hold a NIHR grant to investigate the impact of calorie labelling on people with eating disorders – NIHR award 205226: https://fundingawards.nihr.ac.uk/award/NIHR205226.”