Industry-sponsored opinion of the week: forget about food warning labels

I first read about this in a Forbes article: New Study: Front-Of-Pack Warning Labels Don’t Lower Obesity Rates.

As the FDA mulls interpretive food warning labels, a Georgetown University study shows these schemes have been powerless to halt obesity trends.  In an attempt to tackle stubbornly high adult obesity rates over 40% in the US, the FDA is advancing a proposed front-of-pack (FOP) label that highlights whether a food or beverage contains low, medium or high levels of sugar, saturated fats and sodium. But a new study from Georgetown University titled Can Front-of-Pack Product Labeling Fix the Obesity Crisis says that the FDA has not learned the lessons from other countries using such interpretive food warning labels: there is no hard evidence that they have been effective in improving consumer diets or in arresting rising obesity rates.

The author of this article is Hank Cardello, executive-in-residence at Georgetown McDonough’s Business for Impact.

If you click on the link to the study, you discover than Cardullo himself is its author.

Hank Cardello, executive-in-residence at Georgetown McDonough’s Business for Impact, has published a white paper titled,“Can Front-of-Pack Product Labeling Fix the Obesity Crisis?” This paper argues that front-of-pack (FOP) food labeling has not led to meaningful improvements in public health outcomes. It evaluates data from multiple countries to test the efficacy of other FOP labeling initiatives.

Both the article and his White Papert disclose the funder: the Consumer Brands Association, formerly known as the Grocery Manufacturers of America, which represents Big Food.

Comment

I can understand why the food industry does not like warning labels or any other front-of-pack label that might reduce product sales, which studies of Latin American warning labels show they do.  So this piece is predictable.

If you want people to lose weight, they have to eat less.  Eating less is very bad for business.

What good are front-of-pack labels?  At best they alert consumers to avoid high-calorie foods formulated to get us all to eat more of them.

But that’s just a start.  To lose weight, you also have to make sure the rest of your diet does not replace the calories you just saved.

Cardullo’s suggestion is smalled portions.  Good idea.

In the meantime, warning labels could help and I hope the FDA comes up with good ones.

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Published tomorrow!  Information is here.