WASHINGTON – Advocates touted that listing calories at restaurants would influence consumers’ food choices, and yet menu labeling hasn’t yielded the projected results, the Wall Street Journal reports. Several new studies indicate that calorie data doesn’t make a significant difference in dining habits.

For example, New York University tracked diners at Wendy’s, McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King to see how posted calorie counts impacted choices in New York City, which requires menu labeling, and in New Jersey, which doesn’t. New York City receipts tallied calorie counts on average between 804 and 839 per meal, while New Jersey receipts showed average calories per meal between 802 and 857.

Starting in December 2016, restaurant chains and other foodservice retailers will be required to post calorie counts on menus. Currently, the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Health is debating NACS-supported menu-labeling legislation, the Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act.

A separate study found that restaurants might be changing what they offer because of menu labeling. Johns Hopkins University researchers studied a database of calorie counts from more than 60 of the largest U.S. restaurant chains for a menu comparison analysis between chains that listed calorie data and those that didn’t. Menus of the chains that voluntarily posted calories had close to 140 fewer calories per item on average.