By Jennifer LaRue Huget, Washinton Post

In 2012 the FDA is to issue regulations requiring chain restaurants to include calorie counts on their menus. The initiative, part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, has hurtled forward, even as the science supporting it remains unsettled.

But the newest findings bolster the notion that providing information about foods’ caloric content can help people make more healthful choices. Research published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health shows that when teens -- in this study, black teens shopping in corner convenience stores in low-income areas in Baltimore -- see signs alerting them to the caloric impact of sugar-sweetened beverages (including soda, fruit juice, energy drinks and other sugary sips), some of them choose less-caloric options.

Obesity experts single out sugar-sweetened beverages because, as the study notes, people tend not to register the amount of calories they consume through drinking them and aren’t likely to compensate by consuming fewer calories elsewhere during the day.

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