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NEW YORK (AP) ― A judge on Tuesday struck down a city rule requiring fast-food restaurants to post calorie content on menus because it conflicted with federal law, but he said a rewriting of the rule to apply to more restaurants might be legal.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Holwell said he reached his decision without needing to address claims by businesses that their First Amendment rights were violated by the rule, which had been described as the first of its kind in the nation.

The New York State Restaurant Association had challenged the rule, which took effect in July but whose enforcement had been suspended pending the outcome of the court fight.

The city rule targeted national fast-food chains. It applied only to restaurants that serve standardized portion sizes and were already making calorie information available voluntarily as of March 1.

The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which proposed the rule, said the city was considering all legal and regulatory options. Department spokeswoman Sara Markt accused the restaurants of being "so ashamed of what they are serving that they would rather go to court than post calorie information where their customers can actually use it."

"The actions of these restaurants will deprive consumers of important information for a few months, but we are confident that calorie labeling can be legally mandated by the city and will help New Yorkers be better informed and make healthier choices," she said.

The restaurant association's president, Rick Sampson, called the judge's ruling a "major victory for everyone who enjoys New York's world-class restaurant scene."

He said it "strikes a blow against Big Government trying to tell us what we can or cannot eat."

The National Council of Chain Restaurants, a trade association, said chain restaurants disliked the rule because they do not believe one piece of nutritional information is better or more important than another.

"Chain restaurants will continue to voluntarily provide nutritional information through brochures, posters, tray liners and on the Internet to help customers make educated decisions about what they choose to eat," council president Jack Whipple said.

In his ruling, the judge said the city rule conflicted with federal law because federal law already described how restaurants should post nutritional information if they choose to do so.

He said the city rule would not seem to conflict with federal law if it were mandatory for restaurants. He noted that the city chose to limit the regulation to restaurants that had already disclosed calorie information so the rule would not be burdensome on restaurants that had never analyzed their menus for nutritional data.

The judge called the city's reason for limiting the applicability of the rule laudable, but he said it did not change the fact that it caused the rule to conflict with federal law.

Restaurant association lawyer Kent A. Yalowitz said a rewrite of the law would be studied carefully.

"If they were to change the law, it would have to be evaluated on its merits," he said.

The restaurant association had argued to strike down the rule as unconstitutional, saying it violated the First Amendment and punished eateries that already tell the public nutritional facts about food on their menus by requiring the disclosure to be made in a uniform manner.

The National League of Cities, the National Association of County & City Health Officials, the International Municipal Lawyers Association and the League of California Cities had supported the city in its rule, saying it was necessary to fight obesity.

The groups had filed arguments with the court, saying an adverse ruling in the case would undermine pending legislation in state and local legislatures around the country.

The National Association of County & City Health Officials, representing the nation's 2,800 local health departments, said it was "gravely disappointed" by a ruling it called bad for public health.

Public Citizen and the Center for Science in the Public Interest said in a joint statement that the city could salvage the rule by making menu labeling mandatory for all chain restaurants with 10 or more outlets.

They said the decision "gives cities and states a green light to make nutrition information mandatory at restaurants" by showing that mandatory calorie-posting legislation such as statewide rules just passed in both houses of the California legislature would be legal.

Legislation similar to New York City's is under way in 14 states where obesity rates have recently surged -- Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Vermont.

Nutrition labeling legislation also has been introduced in Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington.

In the last 25 years, obesity rates have doubled among U.S. adults and tripled among children, and rates have increased in every state, the groups said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in a 2005 study that approximately 112,000 deaths are associated with obesity each year, making obesity the second leading contributor to premature death, behind tobacco.

(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)