Introduction: Calorie menu labelling policies are increasingly popular worldwide; however, concerns have been raised about the potential of calorie labels to worsen disordered eating and overall psychosocial wellbeing. This study aimed to investigate the potential unintended consequences of calorie menu labelling interventions on psychosocial wellbeing among young Canadian adults.
Methods: A natural experiment was conducted using longitudinal data from three waves of the Canada Food Study (n=2,327, ages 16-30 years). Multiple imputations were performed to mitigate missing data and attrition across waves. Repeated measures logistic models with difference-in-difference analysis assessed changes over time for eleven outcomes, including disordered eating, internalized weight bias, experienced weight discrimination, and indicators of psychosocial wellbeing across four provinces: Ontario (mandatory calorie labelling), and Alberta, Quebec, and Nova Scotia (no labelling policy).
Results: At baseline, 14% of the sample were at risk of disordered eating. Approximately half reported worrying about becoming fat (48%), and nearly one-fifth experienced weight discrimination in the past year (19%). The implementation of a calorie menu labelling policy did not significantly increase the adjusted odds of disordered eating, internalized weight bias, experienced weight discrimination, nor other indicators of mental health.
Conclusions: The findings of this study contribute to the scarce literature assessing trends in disordered eating and psychosocial wellbeing in the ever-changing context of nutrition policy. The implementation of a mandatory calorie menu labelling policy in Ontario did not seem to elicit disordered eating among young adults, although the impact on people with pre-existing disordered eating and eating disorders is unknown.
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