Every menu in Abu Dhabi will carry calorie counts by the first quarter of 2027. Restaurants have six months to comply, but the direction is fixed.
The calorie count is the most visible part. But it is one detail inside a strategy that reaches every environment where Abu Dhabi residents eat, move and seek care.
Dr Ahmed AlKhazraji, Executive Director of Healthy Living, is not asking residents to make better choices. He is building environments where the better choice is also the easier one. “The environments shape behaviours which shape health,” he said. “Nothing is banned. Don’t aim for perfection, just make the healthier choice on most days.”
Stay up to date with the latest news. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels.
Of the 23 modifiable drivers of human health, 19 sit entirely outside the healthcare sector. Noncommunicable diseases already account for 75 per cent of all deaths globally, killing 40 million people a year. The environment, AlKhazraji argues, is the variable, not willpower.
At the restaurant
Calorie counts are one layer of a broader set of requirements on Abu Dhabi’s food-service sector. Every section of a restaurant menu must include at least one clearly labelled healthy option. In the children’s section, at least half the options must meet that standard. The salt placed on tables by default will shift to low-sodium salt, a direct intervention on hypertension, the leading cause of heart disease.
At the supermarket
At federal level, AlKhazraji has introduced what he describes as the world’s most comprehensive reformulation limits: caps on sugar, salt and fat applied simultaneously to bread, flavoured milks, flavoured yogurts, processed cheese and high-salt snacks. The rollout runs over four years, with reductions capped at 20 per cent in any single year. Carrefour is already reformulating; all supermarket chains must follow by January 1 2027.
Abu Dhabi’s Nutri-Mark system grades products from A to E on the front of pack. The layout of the shelf itself is also changing: at entrances, aisle ends and cash registers, products high in fat, sugar or salt will no longer occupy those high-traffic positions. Advertising for food that fails the sugar-salt-fat threshold has already been removed from Abu Dhabi’s roads and is now extending to malls and petrol stations.
At school and work
In schools, canteen menus are being restructured to age-appropriate portions and nutritional requirements. Deep-fried food, sugar-sweetened beverages and products with additives are off the menu. Every student must accumulate at least 210 minutes of physical activity each week. Government workplaces carry a parallel standard: at least 70 per cent of food and beverage options must meet the healthy threshold.
In the neighbourhood
The Degayeg programme is expanding from 10 to 20 residential districts, giving residents free access to fitness sessions near their homes. The target is a fitness facility within a five-to-ten minute drive for every resident in a priority district, modelled on the emirate’s existing proximity standard for mosques.
Nineteen submissions have come in from private-sector investors, who receive a plot of land and streamlined approvals. By the end of this year, 67 per cent of residents in the 20 districts will have that access, rising to 100 per cent by the close of 2027.
At the clinic
Abu Dhabi’s weight management programme covers weight-loss medication through insurance, on the condition that patients combine it with lifestyle changes. A food-as-medicine pilot is testing whether nutrition can replace medication entirely for early-stage diabetics, at lower cost and with superior outcomes.
The ambition is stated plainly. “We will have the world’s healthiest prepackaged food and beverage ecosystem,” AlKhazraji said. The calorie count arriving on Abu Dhabi menus in Q1 2027 is not the destination. It is the point at which transformation becomes visible to every resident sitting down to order.
Source: Khaleej Times