A really good Freakonomics post on libertarian paternalism and the costs of mandatory calorie disclosures (such as posting them on menus):

The real added cost of mandatory information consumption rules, however, is the one imposed on consumers who prefer not to know the calorie content of their meal choices. If calorie costs bombard them every time they look at a menu, these individuals are made unambiguously worse off because the government makes them feel guilty for the choices they make. This is a very real cost imposed on consumers that is completely avoided if regulators merely require restaurants to provide information as opposed to requiring diners to consume it. The Harvard economist Ed Glaeser has characterized the calorie labeling law as a “revenue-less tax.” Indeed, much like a tax on soda or cigarettes, labeling requirements raise the cost of consuming foods, particularly ones that taste good. Cleverly disguised, however, the opposition to a labeling law is likely to be less. . . .

In the absence of a strong claim that mandatory calorie labeling improves welfare for a majority of Americans, surely the libertarian policy among these alternatives is to make information available to consumers, but to permit them to avoid it if they so choose. After all, the government has very little leeway to make us consume anything. And the notion that government should impose guilt on its citizens must be girded by weaker philosophical principles than those that support libertarian paternalism. . . .

There is nothing libertarian about mandating information consumption. And making people feel guilty just seems paternalistic. The causal-chain from mandatory information consumption to improved health outcomes is so weak that one wonders whether it is worth making people feel bad about themselves—especially when better alternatives exist.

Libertarian paternalism is renamed statism.