Seattle Fast-food chains must now post fat, calories

As of Jan. 1 2009 more than 1,500 fast-food and chain restaurants throughout Seattle and King County will be required to post on their menu boards or some other "easily readable"sign how many calories, milligrams of sodium and grams of saturated fat and carbohydrates are contained in that burger, fries, salad, smoothie, mocha latte or other comestible.

Like similar ordinances in New York City and perhaps a dozen or more other jurisdictions nationwide, the new King County regulations do not apply to all restaurants, mostly to fast-food chains, are by design a little vague and will take some time before anyone can show they actually work to improve health.

The King County Board of Health, which passed the regulation last spring, limited it to chain restaurants with 15 or more national locations because they tend to use fairly fixed menus. But Dennis Worsham, a regional health officer with Public Health, said the goal is to see it expand in use, if proved effective.

"It just made sense to start with the chain restaurants,"Worsham said. Studies show most people do want this information, he said, and the hope is further expansion will come more from consumer demand than new regulation.