Eating disorders reduce everything to black and white, good and bad – so what could be starker and scarier than a number next to a dish?
“Seven hundred and twenty calories?” my 11-year-old said the other day, as she ran her finger down the menu in our local Italian restaurant and stopped, predictably, at “Spaghetti Bolognese”.
“Isn’t that a lot?” I was slightly taken aback. She’s never noticed the calorie counts UK restaurants have been forced to display alongside dishes since April last year.
But here in LA, where food can sometimes be seen as a bodily threat rather than a pleasure, and a personal trainer once gravely told me to “be careful around carrots”, the calories tend to be printed in a larger font or even bolded up, safety warning-style. EAT THIS AND YOU MAY HAVE TO BE CARRIED OUT OF HERE WITH A FORKLIFT.
I told her to have the spag bol, gave her a little speech about healthy eating pyramids, units of energy, kids expending loads of it and not all calories being created equal – and forgot about it.