“低卡”饮食在当今的餐馆里非常流行，然而最新的一项研究表明，它可能和人们想象的不太一样。

　　In a recent study published in the Journal of Consumer Research, placing low-calorie dishes into their own low-calorie category can cause consumers to instead choose higher calorie meals that could be making them fatter.

　　最近发表在《消费者研究期刊》上的研究表明，将低卡菜肴单独列出来可能会促使顾客购买更高卡路里的餐点，而这非但对减肥无益，反而会增肥。

　　To Jeffrey Parker, an assistant professor of marketing at Georgia State University, the restaurant menu provides the perfect conditions for testing decision-making. When the Build Your Own Salad menus in New York began making an appearance in every corner deli, he had to wonder how that could affect consumer choice.

　　对于美国佐治亚州立大学市场教授助理杰弗里·帕克来说，餐厅菜单为测试顾客决策提供了极佳的条件。当纽约的各个角落的餐厅都提供着“计划你自己的沙拉”服务时，他开始考虑是什么影响了消费者的决策。

　　“And everyone was well, is that actually helping people make choices?” he asked. Together with Donald R. Lehmann, a Columbia Business professor, Parker hypothesized that placing calories next to dishes didn’t really help people make healthier choices and placing all those low-calorie dishes in their own section helps even less.

　　“大家都对这个服务反映良好，然而实际上是什么在帮助我们做决策呢？”他问道。于是，和一位哥伦比亚商学教授唐纳德·R·莱曼一起，帕克做出了假设。他认为，将卡路里标在食物旁边实际上不能帮人们做出更健康的选择，而把所有低卡食物都放在一起收效更微。

　　“For a lot of people low-cal, healthy things kind of sound like not very big, not very filling, doesn’t taste very good,” he said. “Even if that’s not true, that’s the inference they have so they immediately go, ‘I don’t want that’ and then they choose from the rest of the menu which means they’re going to choose something that’s relatively high calorie.”

　　“对于大部分人来说，健康的食物听起来总像是吃不饱，也不好吃。”他说，“即使这并不是真的，但是基于自己的推断，人们还是会直接忽略掉低卡食品。他们会觉得‘我才不想吃那个’，然后去从菜单剩下的食物中选择，这就意味着他们会选择一些相对来说卡路里较高的食物。”

　　Parker and Lehmann’s study was fairly simple. Participants were asked to select an item from a number of menus, which were randomly assigned. The first “traditional” menu looked much like a regular restaurant menu where dishes did not feature any special “Chef’s Choice” flags or caloric content. The second “calorie-posted” menu included caloric content next to dishes, while the third “calorie-organized” menu took it a step further and categorized low-calorie dishes in a separate section.

　　帕克和莱曼的研究相当简单，参与者只需从菜单中随机选择一道菜肴即可，而这些菜单都是被随机分发的。第一份“传统”的菜单看起来很常规，没有标注“主厨推荐”或者卡路里含量；第二份菜单在每道菜旁边都标注了卡路里；而第三份则更进一步，把所有的低卡菜肴都放在了单独的一栏。

　　Overall, on average, when low-calorie dishes were separated, participants chose dishes that contained 11 percent more calories. When calorie information was posted next to the dish, participants must have found the information helpful because they chose dishes that were 15 percent lower in calories. The average calorie selection for the traditional menu, however, was a whopping 1, 235 calories — almost half the FDA’s recommended daily limit. So, posting calorie content can help, but posting it in its own category is counter-productive.

　　总体来说，当低卡菜肴被分离开时，参与者会选择包含多11%卡路里的菜肴；而当卡路里被明确标在菜肴旁边时，由于受到这个信息的影响，参与者对卡路里的选择低了15%。拿到传统菜单的人们选择的菜肴热量则高达1235大卡——基本上达到了食品及药物管理局（FDA）推荐的每日限量的一半。所以说，把卡路里含量标注出来是有益的，而把低卡菜肴单列一栏反会适得其反。

　　The low-calorie section was meant to mimic popular chain restaurant low-cal sections from Applebee’s, Red Robin and Chili’s. For instance, Applebee’s calls out its healthier options in a section titled “Under 550 Calories”, while Chili’s uses “Lighter Choices” to categorize its more nutritious options. Menu items also took their cue from places such as Cheesecake Factory (which boasts more than 200 menu items), Olive Garden, Red Lobster and more.

　　低卡菜单意在模仿如苹果蜂、红罗宾和小辣椒等生意红火的连锁餐厅的模式。例如，苹果蜂有一个菜单叫做“低于550大卡”，小辣椒也用“更轻盈的选择”菜单来标注更有营养的选项。菜单上的餐点同样受了如芝士工厂、橄榄花园、红龙虾等餐厅的启发。

　　What they found was that, even after controlling for price and age, people are really not interested in healthy options. If you’re in a restaurant pressed for time you’re quickly looking for ways to eliminate options, and more often than not, eliminating the “Healthy Options” section is an easy choice.

　　他们也发现，控制了价格和年龄之后，人们还是对健康选项不太感兴趣；尤其是当人们时间紧张时，他们快速浏览选项时还是会轻而易举地过滤掉“健康之选”那一栏。

　　Surprisingly, when a low-calorie dish isn’t separated from the menu, but placed within its appropriate section (a vegetarian sandwich goes under Sandwiches) it has a better chance of being selected, says Parker.

　　帕克说，出人意料的是，如果低卡菜肴没有从菜单上分出来，而是正常排在菜单里的话，人们往往会更乐于选择。

　　“If this consumer wants a barbecue bacon cheeseburger, he is going to have to accept the high calorie count that comes with it,” writes Parker. “Assume that a low-calorie option is also in the consumer’s consideration set (perhaps a turkey burger). The consumer knows that he has to give up something in taste to get fewer calories, but a turkey burger is still a burger. Thus, the likelihood that it will be chosen increases simply due to it being included in the consideration set.”

　　“如果顾客想选择培根芝士汉堡，那他就得接受随之而来的高热量。”帕克说，“假设顾客也曾考虑过低卡选项（可能是火鸡肉汉堡），那他就知道为了摄入少一点的热量，他得放弃一点口感的追求。但是汉堡还是汉堡，因此，既然被考虑过了，那它被选择的可能性还会增加。”

　　Surprisingly, Parker says, if customers were given more time, selecting a low-calorie meal would increase. This would ensure they had more time to peruse options and keep customers re-thinking that Grilled Chicken Sandwich with 610 calories, versus the Caribbean Crispy Chicken Salad with 1375 calories.

　　但是帕克也说，如果顾客有更多的时间选择，那他们点低卡餐点的几率还会增加。有更多的时间意味着他们能够更仔细考虑，这样他们也会重新想想是选择610大卡的烤鸡三明治，还是1375大卡的加勒比脆皮鸡沙拉。