Changes coming for Nutrition Facts labels on food products: emphasis on calories, added sugar and serving size

Associated Press

By Danielle Ray
Kentucky Health News

Nutrition labels on food products will undergo a facelift over the next two years.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized plans Friday to change labeling to emphasize calorie count and added sugars in an effort to simply nutrition labels and clarify serving sizes.

First lady Michelle Obama, a longtime crusader against childhood obesity, said parents will benefit from the upcoming changes.

"You will no longer need a microscope, a calculator, or a degree in nutrition to figure out whether the food you're buying is actually good for our kids," she told The Associated Press.

The overhaul puts less emphasis on fats and more on caloric value and added sugars. Calories on upcoming labels will be listed in larger font than other nutrient facts. Added sugar will get its own line, separate from naturally occurring sugar.  Currently, both added and naturally occurring sugars were lumped under one category, "Sugars."

New labels will also include a new "percent daily value" for added sugar, which will tell consumers how much of their recommended daily intake they will get from a given item. The FDA recommends consuming less than 10 percent of total daily calories (200 calories in a typical diet) from added sugar.

"The new labels should also spur food manufacturers to add less sugar to their products," Michael Jacobson, president of the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, told AP. He said that under current labeling, it's nearly impossible for consumers to know how much sugar fits into a reasonable diet.

The footnote will better explain what "percent daily value" means. It will read: “The % Daily Value tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.”

Serving sizes will also be clearer. The biggest difference will be that serving sizes will be based on what consumers typically eat instead of what they should eat. About one-fifth of foods will undergo revised calculations. For example, a serving size of ice cream will be 2/3 of a cup; previously it was a 1/2 cup.

If you've ever been duped into consuming more calories than you intended, or tried to calculate exactly what fraction of a slice of pizza constitutes a serving size, you're in luck. Package size affects what people eat, the FDA noted. So, products that were previously between one and two servings, such as a 20-ounce soda, will be labeled as a single serving, since consumers generally eat or drink the entire contents in one sitting.

Larger containers, like pints of ice cream, will have dual column labels: one column with information for a single serving and the other with information for the entire container.

Labels will also include two additional nutrients: potassium and Vitamin D.

Industry reaction was predictable. A representative for the Sugar Association told AP that emphasis on added sugar could confuse consumers, but other industry leaders welcomed the changes.

"This update is timely as diets, eating patterns and consumer preferences have changed dramatically since the Nutrition Facts panel was first introduced," Leon Bruner, of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, told AP.

Most food manufacturers have until July 2018 to comply. Smaller manufacturers will have an additional year.

The FDA proposed the changes two years ago. They are the first major update to nutrition labels since labeling was introduced in 1994. So far, more than 800,000 foods have nutrition labels.

For more information on the changes, click here.

Ky., high in childhood obesity, fights it with better school meals, increased activity requirements and maybe help from Big Bird

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Kentucky children are some of the nation's fattest.

In 2011, the last year for which data are complete, Kentucky ranked sixth in the U.S. in the percentage of obese 2-to 4-year-olds from low-income families (15.5%), eighth for percentage of obese 10-17 year-olds (19.7%), and third in percentage of obese students in high school (16.5%), according to a project of the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (Read more

Kentucky has several programs in place to fight childhood obesity, such as improving food choices in schools with farm-to-school mini-grants and improved school nutritional guidelines. Efforts are also being made to increase the standard expectations of physical activity, according to the federal 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.  

Laws that require Kentucky school districts to develop local wellness policies for grades K-5 that includes moderate to vigorous physical activity each day and encourages healthy choices among students are a step in the right direction toward decreasing childhood obesity. This legislation also requires assessment tools to measure each child's level of physical activity on an annual level, according to the National Association of State Boards of Education website. There is also a push to increase the activity requirements in child care facilities, according to the CDC website.

The frequency at which children eat fast food, and its nutritional value, are also challenges in decreasing childhood obesity. Kids and teens consume up to 300 calories more per trip to a fast-food or full service restaurant compared to days they eat at home, Ryan Jaslow reports for CBS News. (Read more)

Although fast-food restaurants have made some improvements with healthier sides and beverage choices in most children's meals, "there is room for improvement," researchers say in the "Fast Food Facts 2013" report, issued by Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity.

The report examines how 18 major restaurant chains market their foods and beverages to children and teens, and analyzes the nutritional quality of the chains' food. Significant findings included: Less than 1 percent of all children's meal combinations at such restaurants met recommended nutrition standards; McDonald's spent 2.7 times as much to advertise its products as all fruit, vegetable, bottled water and milk advertisers combined; the total amount spent on all advertising by fast-food restaurants in 2012 was $4.6 billion; preschoolers viewed 2.8 fast-food ads per day in 2012; children 6 to 11 saw 3.2 such ads per day; and teens viewed 4.8. The researchers also found that fast-food restaurants continued to target black and Hispanic youth, populations at high risk for obesity and related diseases.

Researchers called for fast-food restaurants to stop marketing unhealthy foods to children and teens, saying "Research shows that exposure to food marketing messages increases children’s obesity risk." (Read more

On the marketing front, "Sesame Street" characters have joined the Produce Marketing Association to help market fresh fruits and vegetables to children, according to a press release from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

"Marketing healthy products with the same skill and vigor typically used for less healthy options could make a major difference in shaping children's food preferences," Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, the foundation's president and CEO. "I have a vision of children pestering their parents for pears and begging for broccoli."

HBO's 'Weight of the Nation' examines the obesity epidemic

A compelling four-part documentary delving into the obesity epidemic sweeping the country is being aired on HBO and can be watched free by clicking here. A reporter wanting to write a series of stories on the issue would find "weight of the Nation" a good reference.

The program is divided into four parts. The first segment, "Consequences," looks at the scope of the epidemic and the ramifications of being overweight or obese. "Choices" looks at the science behind how to lose weight, how to maintain weight loss and prevent weight gain. The third part, "Children in Crisis," looks at how the problem is affecting American children, exploring the decline of physical activity, school lunch, the demise of school recess and how marketing of unhealthy food targets children. The final segment, "Challenges," looks at the major forces driving obesity, including agriculture, economics, evolutionary biology, food marketing, racial and socioeconomic disparities, physical inactivity, American food culture, and the influence of the food and beverage industries.

The documentary is on a detailed website that answers questions that range from "What is obesity?" to "How do I know if I'm overweight or obese?"

The project is a presentation of HBO and the Institute of Medicine in association with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, with support from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and health insurer Kaiser Permanente.

Convenience, not expense, is making us avoid eating fruits, vegetables and other non-processed foods

A lack of convenience, not a high price, is the major obstacle to getting people to eat more fruit and vegetables, a study published in the journal Public Health Nutrition has found. The study analyzed the fruit and vegetable consumption in six low-income, mostly minority neighborhoods in Chicago.

"Participants who agreed that they had 'convenient access to quality' produce were more than twice as likely to eat the FDA-recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables," Sarah Kliff reports for The Washington Post. "Those who reported high cost as a barrier to the consumption of produce ended up eating just as much as those who didn't." (Post photo above by Barbara Damrosch)

The study seems to support New York Times columnist Mark Bittman's assertion that Americans are skipping nutritious food because it takes much more work to prepare, not because it's too expensive. "It's cooking that's the real challenge," he writes in a September 2011 column. "The core problem is that cooking is defined as work, and fast food is both a pleasure and a crutch." (Times photo by Daniel Borris)

Contributing to the problem, Bittman argues, is the addictive qualities of fast food and processed food: physically addictive, as a study by the Scripps Research Institute shows, and mentally addictive. Bittman cites David A. Kessler, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and author of The End of Overeating, who said manufacturers created food that was "energy-dense, highly stimulating and went down easy. They put it on every street corner and made it mobile, and they made it socially acceptable to eat anytime and anyplace. They created a food carnival, and that's where we live. And if you're used to self-stimulation every 15 minutes, well, you can't run into the kitchen to satisfy that urge."

The answer is in changing mindsets, Bittman writes, and getting "people to see cooking as a joy rather than a burden, or at least as part of a normal life." That takes education and changing the environment, which, he points out, has been done with tobacco. Cultural change can happen by celebrating whole foods, he writes. Political action would mean limiting "the marketing of junk; forcing its makers to pay the true costs of production; recognizing that advertising for fast food is not the exercise of free speech but behavior manipulation of addictive substances; and making certain that real food is affordable and available to everyone. The political challenge is the more difficult one, but it cannot be ignored." (Read more)

New regs could change way food industry markets to children

"The federal government proposed sweeping new guidelines on Thursday that could push the food industry to overhaul how it advertises cereal, soda pop, snacks, restaurant meals and other foods to children," The New York Times' William Neuman reports.

The guidelines, which were released by the Federal Trade Commission, target TV commercials, print ads, websites, product placement in movies, kids meals at fast food restaurants (Getty Images photo by David Paul Morris) and online games that serve to promote a product. "The inclusion of digital media, such as product-based games, represents one of the government's strongest efforts so far to address the extension of children's advertising into the online world," Neuman reports.

"Our proposal really covers all forms of marketing to kids, and the product packaging and the images and themes on the cereal boxes have tremendous appeal to kids," said Michelle K. Rush, a trade commission attorney. "The goal is to encourage children to eat more healthy foods because obesity is a huge health crisis."

Advertised food would have to be made of healthy ingredients, such as whole grains, fresh fruit and vegetables, or skim or 1 percent milk. They could not have high amounts of sugar, trans fats, salt or saturated fat. Cereals would only be able to have 8 grams of sugar per serving — they now often contain 12 grams — and salt would be limited to 450 milligrams per serving in packaged foods. A 15-ounce can of Chef Boyardee beef ravioli now has 750 milligrams.

Following the guidelines will be voluntary, but there will be pressure for companies to adopt them, Neuman reports. Those that elect to do so will have five to 10 years to revamp their products and marketing strategy.

A recent study in the American Journal of Public Health found that in 1997 to 2002 the average child saw about 4,000 television commercials advertising food each year. During Saturday morning cartoons, kids saw a food ad about every five minutes. Of that food advertised, about 95 percent of it was of poor nutritional value. In 2006, food companies spent almost $2.3 billion in children's advertising, the Federal Trade Commission found.

In response to the new guidelines, the food industry said it has "already taken significant steps to improve recipes and change the way it advertises to children," Neuman reports. (Read more)