sarawilcox
commented
4 years ago At the February Style Council meeting, we agreed to add the following to the Numbers page:
Calories
We use "calorie" when talking about calories in general, for example "calorie information on menus". Where appropriate, we explain that calories are often written as "kcal".
We use "kcal" as the unit of measurement. We do not put a space between the amount and measurement.
Example: The average man needs around 2,500kcal.
We also agreed to add the following guidance to the A to Z of NHS health writing page:
Calories (kcal)
See calories on our Numbers, measurements, dates and time page.
[Waiting for clinical sign-off.]
What
We propose to clearly state the correct formatting of calorie unit measurement: '120kcal'.
We also propose to add guidance on when it is more appropriate to use the full word of 'calorie', such as:
We also want to say why we use kcal as the unit of measurement (they are the most commonly used across various sources such as the Food Standards Agency).
Why
We currently have no guidance on how to format calories, leading to people writing a mixture of:
We also have no guidance on when to use the full word or the unit of measurement.
Guidance would mean there is consistency and greater clinical accuracy on topics such as nutrition and healthy living.