New FDA Label Proposals

FDA Nutrition labels

Last week the Food and Drug Administration announced two major food policy proposals to amend serving sizes and update the Nutrition Facts panel found on packaged foods. Several other government-industry nutrition communication initiatives have been discussed recently, including school feeding programs, advertising standards for foods targeting children, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and menu calorie labeling in chain restaurants, among others. These are all examples of food policy acting as health policy.

This leads us to ask three questions;

1. How do consumers learn about nutrition? From multiple places on the food label, by comparing products in stores, by viewing media including the Internet, and asking friends and family.

    • We are in an increasingly complex market place, due in part to the food industry looking for an edge in marketing.
    • The Nutrition Facts label is viewed as “government controlled” and a public health communication tool with high credibility.
    • An overhaul of the nutrition label can be empowering for citizens, enabling them, for example, to more easily compare products.

 2. Will these new labels help? Clearer and more realistic messages, new evidence from nutrition science and (hopefully) a new series of education efforts to help consumers learn more. But this is only half of the problem –consumers do not have the same food access.

    • Consistent messages matter – what a product describes on the front of the package should align with what the consumer can read in the Nutrition Facts and ingredient list.
    • Focusing on the individual consumer ignores some of the structural barriers to healthy eating, be they based on physical, economic, cultural/social, time use, and safe access.

 3. Why now? Continued concern over obesity, changing dietary patterns (the old Nutrition Facts came out 20 years ago), and different ways of getting information (think smart phones in the grocery aisle).

    • We are bombarded with food advertising everywhere, we notice some of it but not all, sometimes we think a lot about our food choices other times not so much.
    • Healthy eating includes both awareness and education, supply and demand around a healthy diet and access to healthy foods. While many focus on fruits and vegetables (not covered by these label proposals) these changes apply to packaged food.
    • The attention provided by these new label proposals provides an opportunity to energize healthy food access educational programming.

FDA’s new labeling proposals should enhance efforts to increase healthy food access.  For example, managers of small stores should find it easier to stock healthy items and encourage customers to make better nutritional choices and groups that focus on healthy cooking and shopping skills for community members will benefit from easier to read labels.  But this will require education, attention and adaptation. Current examples of groups trying to do this in Central Ohio include;

 

Meet the Experts

Neal Hooker Dr. Neal Hooker is a Professor of Food Policy in the John Glenn School of Public Affairs, The Ohio State University. His research explores public policy, marketing and management issues within global food supply chains. He is particularly interested in how safety, nutrition and sustainability attributes are communicated, controlled, and (where appropriate) certified. He studies firm and consumer responses to food policy.

jill clark Dr. Jill Clark’s work focuses on local food policy and planning that addresses community public health objectives and the viability of small and mid-size farms. Here in Columbus, she is part of the Fresh Foods Here, a healthy corner store collaborative. Dr. Clark chairs the United Way of Central Ohio’s Nutrition and Fitness Results Committee, which focuses on the ability of Central Ohioans to maintain healthy nutrition and fitness, and she chairs the Franklin County Local Food Council’s policy working group.

Entering the Blogosphere

“Never doubt a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world.
Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”  – Margaret Mead, American Anthropologist

Food is basic to life, but our global food system must improve and innovate. To sustain a population of nine billion people by 2050, the world’s food supply must increase by a staggering 70 percent. But increasing production is not enough to eradicate hunger and improve human health. Roughly one third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally to flaws in process, economics, energy, behavior, and policy. Food discovery at Ohio State is ingenuity that cuts across disciplines; it is the best ideas from academia, government, and industry that solve local, national and global food problems. The Ohio State University Food Innovation Center has the tools and talent to improve access to abundant, safe, health-promoting food.

The Food Innovation Center (FIC) brings together members from all disciplines at The Ohio State University. Few major universities have the intellectual and technical resources needed to aggressively attack the global food crisis. Ohio State has collaborative, co-localized, expertise in medicine, human nutrition, business, law, policy, food science, crop and animal sciences, engineering, economics, and more that can help develop comprehensive strategies to the most challenging food problems. In addition, our Center members regularly team with industry and government on food issues. FIC membership includes faculty, staff, graduate students and community partners interested in collaborating to tackle tough food issues such as:

  • Foods for health
  • Biomedical nutrition
  • Food safety
  • Food strategy and policy
  • Obesity
  • Food Security

FIC members are experts in their fields and we’ve asked them to share their knowledge with the World Wide Web.

How do we determine what topics we cover?

We receive input from FIC members, Ohio State students and staff, as well as gather ideas based on national news stories and the food-focused topics being discussed on blogs.

FIC gives you the opportunity to connect with food experts who have done the research, checked their work and want to share the results. Enjoy, reflect and share your opinion.