Starbucks

Today I had the unfortunate experience of walking into Starbucks and seeing the calorie content of every drink posted beside the price in the menu.

The nutritional information for Starbucks has been available online for a very long time and is easily accessible for anyone interested.

The posting of the caloric information up on a big board for everyone to see is completely unnecessary and in some cases it can even be harmful. As an individual trying to recover from an eating disorder, I find it quite discouraging to walk into my local coffee store and find calories printed up on the menu. It discourages a healthy relationship with food, and puts emphases on the caloric content instead of the enjoyment and nutritional value of the food.

Not only can this information be harmful to some (and by some I'm referring to the 5% (yes, that's 1 in 20) of the population suffering from an eating disorder), it is actually irrelevant to the majority of the population. A healthy relationship with food should not involve counting calories. A healthy relationship with food should involve eating when hungry and stopping when full, and eating food your body craves and needs.

Counting calories is often considered to be a disordered eating pattern, which Starbucks is now encouraging.

Starbucks has definitely lost a customer today, and I hope they realize the harm that they're causing.