If we know the facts, we’re less likely to overeat and/or eat stuff that’s bad for us. So goes the thinking at the FDA lately.

It’s commendable that they are wanting to help people understand the consequences of their dietary choices. But I wonder if the proposal they’ll be making next month, that

FINDINGS (washingtonpost.com)”would tell food manufacturers for the first time to list on packages the percentage of daily recommended calories the product contains” will really make a difference. They believe it will “shock” people to see that a food item constitutes 50% of their daily allowance of calories…

Well, maybe. It’s certainly valuable to have the information handy and may help some, but fighting obesity is about paying attention. And that’s what many of us don’t want to do. So having more information means simply that there’s more evidence we can ignore as we choose to eat the cream-filled chocolate cupcake or the greasy fried chicken anyway–just ‘cuz we want to.