The Federal Menu Labeling Law and Twitter Discussions about Calories in the United States: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis

Yulin Hswen; Alyssa J Moran; Siona Prasad; Anna Li; Denise Simon; Lauren Cleveland; Jared B Hawkins; John S Brownstein; Jason Block

doi:10.3390/ijerph182010794

The Federal Menu Labeling Law and Twitter Discussions about Calories in the United States: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Oct 14;18(20):10794. doi: 10.3390/ijerph182010794.

Authors

Yulin Hswen^{1

2

3

4}, Alyssa J Moran⁵, Siona Prasad⁶, Anna Li⁶, Denise Simon⁷, Lauren Cleveland⁷, Jared B Hawkins^{3

4}, John S Brownstein^{3

4}, Jason Block⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA.
² Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA.
³ Computational Epidemiology Lab, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
⁴ Innovation Program, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
⁵ Department of Health Policy and Management, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MA 21205, USA.
⁶ Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
⁷ Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Boston, MA 02215, USA.

Abstract

Public awareness of calories in food sold in retail establishments is a primary objective of the menu labeling law. This study explores the extent to which we can use social media and internet search queries to understand whether the federal calorie labeling law increased awareness of calories. To evaluate the association of the federal menu labeling law with tweeting about calories we retrieved tweets that contained the term "calorie(s)" from the CompEpi Geo Twitter Database from 1 January through 31 December in 2016 and 2018. Within the same time period, we also retrieved time-series data for search queries related to calories via Google Trends (GT). Interrupted time-series analysis was used to test whether the federal menu labeling law was associated with a change in mentions of "calorie(s)" on Twitter and relative search queries to calories on GT. Before the implementation of the federal calorie labeling law on 7 May 2018, there was a significant decrease in the baseline trend of 4.37 × 10^-8 (SE = 1.25 × 10^-8, p < 0.001) mean daily ratio of calorie(s) tweets. A significant increase in post-implementation slope of 3.19 × 10^-8 (SE = 1.34 × 10^-8 , p < 0.018) mean daily ratio of calorie(s) tweets was seen compared to the pre-implementation slope. An interrupted time-series (ITS) analysis showed a small, statistically significant upward trend of 0.0043 (SE = 0.036, p < 0.001) weekly search queries for calories pre-implementation, with no significant level change post-implementation. There was a decrease in trend of 1.22 (SE = 0.27, p < 0.001) in search queries for calories post-implementation. The federal calorie labeling law was associated with a 173% relative increase in the trend of mean daily ratio of tweets and a -28381% relative change in trend for search queries for calories. Twitter results demonstrate an increase in awareness of calories because of the addition of menu labels. Google Trends results imply that fewer people are searching for the calorie content of their meal, which may no longer be needed since calorie information is provided at point of purchase. Given our findings, discussions online about calories may provide a signal of an increased awareness in the implementation of calorie labels.

Keywords: Twitter; calorie; federal labeling law; health policy; interrupted time-series; sentiment analysis; social media.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

Consumer Behavior
Energy Intake
Food Labeling
Humans
Restaurants
Social Media*
United States

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding