Professor Donal O'Shea, the HSE's National Clinical Lead for Obesity, has called for plans for calorie posting on menus to resume after they were postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking to RTE's Claire Byrne, he claimed that 30% of people pay attention to calories and order items with less calories when such details are available on menus.
He revealed: "At a population level that is the change you can only dream of."
He added that voluntary uptake didn't spread far beyond restaurant chains and that legislation should be put in place for the "the right kind of calorie posting".
He described the desired approach, explaining that calories appearing on menus directly after the prices of items in the same font and colour is the best approach.
"Your eyeline is the byline, so it is the final thing you see when you are purchasing," he said.
"We need to say we have an obesity epidemic that is crippling our health service and that is one simple thing that works."
However, Chief Executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland Adrian Cummins said that his members did not see the "practicality" of having calories on menus in restaurants.
He pointed out menus that are changed daily and the issues that can arise when calories are required to be placed on them.
"We need to start a conversation but it needs to start with education in schools," he said.
In a statement to Dublin Live, the HSE pointed out the "important role" the food industry has in promoting healthy dietary behaviours and recommends menu labelling (including calories) to "help increase transparency in the nutritional value of meals outside the home".
A voluntary menu-labelling/calorie posting scheme was introduced in Ireland in 2012, supported by provision of training and free analysis tools by the FSAI. An evaluation of the voluntary scheme showed that only 7% of food business outlets surveyed were displaying calories, with the main reasons listed by restaurants for not doing so including time and cost constraints.
A HSE spokesperson told Dublin Live: "Mandatory posting of calories on menus in Ireland has been under consideration by the Department of Health since 2015, Action 2.2 in Healthy Weight for Ireland: Obesity Policy and Action Plan published in 2016 commits to 'Develop, implement and evaluate calorie posting legislation'.
"The HSE introduced a Calorie Posting Policy in 2015 for healthcare sites.
"The Department of Health commissioned the ESRI in 2018 to undertake behavioural research to pre-test how the location of calorie information on menus affects whether consumers notice calorie information and how much they order, eat and understand; which showed a positive impact in terms of behaviour and outcome."
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