On the Side: Obesity expert sides with chain restaurants

At his insistence - because he feels unfairly maligned - I have just read the cagey affidavit that David B. Allison, president-elect of the Obesity Society, was paid a sum of money to write on behalf of New York City's aggrieved chain restaurants.

Just how much money, Allison is not prepared to say. But no matter: He admits he's a hired gun.

The state restaurant association is suing Gotham's public health officers, who, having slain the trans-fat dragon, are on a roll: They want chains to post calorie counts.

Why? Well, how else would you figure that a kid's serving of Chicken McNuggets, in fact, had more fat and calories than a cheeseburger?

The logic behind the new rule is this. If you see in black-and-white that Aussie cheese fries top out at close to 800 calories per portion, you might go,

Hmmmm

.

Second, even if you don't care, it might guilt-trip the chain, which happens to be Outback Steakhouse. (That's what happened with the McNugget. Once the calorie secret was out, McDonald's reformulated them with lower-calorie white meat.)

In the New York City Department of Health's best-case scenario, other chains follow that model and recalibrate their menus. Everyone's pants fit better. The diabetes epidemic hits a speed bump.

Plus, as New York goes on this one, so goes the nation. More than 20 other local governments are chewing over similar bills, Philadelphia now included.

So the stakes are pretty high. (The suit to block the rule goes to trial in federal court today.). And big guns are required.

And that is where David Allison comes in: In addition to his professorship in biostatistics and nutrition at the University of Alabama (Birmingham), he is widely published, and as he introduces himself in the filing against the New York City Board of Health, he's president-elect of "the largest and most prestigious academic society for the study of obesity in North America."

That would be the Obesity Society.

Last week, part of the content of his filing hit the news. The society's members were not amused. Part of it questioned whether fast-food joints should be singled out. (Customers who eat at them, Allison argues, eat chips and drink soda at home. While watching TV!)

And did New York's health commissioner ever think about this one: If a teenager is denied the comalike fullness conferred by a Double Whopper With Cheese, he might binge on low-cal snacks, the sum total of which could have more calories than the Double Whopper had to begin with.

Remember, he says, it can be argued that "fresh fruits, vegetables and lean broiled fish" make people fat, too - not just "French fries, ice cream and refined sugar."

Beyond that, he argues, a New York Health Department survey that found that Subway sandwich-shop patrons chose items with 48 fewer calories after seeing posted calorie counts is fatally flawed.

And so on.

Can we pause here and note that, upon learning of Allison's affidavit, the ("prestigious") Obesity Society itself rejected its caveats: More calorie info about restaurant meals, not less, it said, is in the consumer's best interest.

But Allison wants to have his cake and eat it, too.

Is obesity a public health concern? Yes, he recites.

Is it caused by eating more than you burn off? Yes.

Do Americans eat out more nowadays? Yes.

Is chain food "quite high in absolute calories"? Yes.

Do patrons routinely underestimate the number of calories when they eat out? "I accept [the] proposition."

Do restaurants contribute to the obesity epidemic above and beyond other sources? "Plausible."

In conclusion, Allison concedes that posting calorie information on menu boards might well reduce obesity.

But it is "equally reasonable to conjecture that [it] would have no beneficial effect on reducing obesity levels."

Yep, that's it, folks.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Hard to prove either way.

That might be exactly what the New York State Restaurant Association was looking for.

As for the Obesity Society, it might want to look at regime change.