New York City Reintroduces Calorie Rule

The Bloomberg administration, in its continuing fight against obesity, reintroduced a measure yesterday to force chain restaurants to display calorie information on their menus or menu boards, after a federal judge struck down a similar measure last month.

The new regulation would apply to all restaurants operating in the city that have 15 or more outlets here or across the country.

Many chains, including McDonald’s, Burger King and Starbucks, already provide calorie information on their Web sites or on posters or tray liners.

But health officials say customers rarely see this information before deciding what to order. The regulation would require the calorie counts to be posted as prominently as the price of each menu item. For many fast food outlets, that means the information would be added to the big signs behind the cash registers that list food items and prices.