It's one thing to know how many calories are packed into a meal you're about to eat, and quite another to fully appreciate what your body does with them.

More restaurants display calorie counts on their menus, but what if they also informed you what it would take to burn off those calories?

That's been clear since cities like New York mandated calorie counts on fast food and restaurant menus so consumers would have a better idea of what they were eating.

Despite the added information, studies haven't shown that the counts led people to eat less.

In fact, some surveys found they prompted people to order more food. So caloric information, it seems, doesn't have much impact on eating behavior.

Better strategies are clearly needed, so researchers Dr. Meena Shah and Ashlei James from Texas Christian University tried another approach replacing the calorie counts with the number of minutes of brisk walking a person would need to complete to burn off what they just ate.

The findings suggest that putting caloric information in context may help consumers to better appreciate how much they are eating.

The more information people have, he says, the more informed their food choices might be; there's nothing like the prospect of more exercise to help fight the urge to eat. Thank you.

"It could take anywhere from one to two hours of moderate exercise such as brisk walking to burn the calories in some of the energy-dense foods. This may then help them make more appropriate food choices," says Shah.

And while the study focused on participants under age 30, the researchers say the results could have implications for changing eating habits for all adults.