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‘Front-of-package’ food labelling helps consumers choose healthier – PAHO
PAHO Director, Dr. Carissa F. Etienne.
Kaieteur News – The Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) has made it clear that front-of-package warnings against foods excessive in fats, sugars and sodium is the best way to help people avoid the unhealthiest purchases. The front-of-package warning labels work better than any other kind of nutritional labelling, such as healthy food endorsements.
PAHO in a release, stated that it reviewed six different categories of food labelling systems to determine which perform best to help consumers correctly and easily identify products that are excessive in nutrients associated with the top three causes of death in the Americas namely: overweight, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
According to the Director of PAHO, Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, “the front-of-package warning labels can guide healthier choices, save lives, improve the quality of life in the Region, and protect our human rights and those of our children. This is an urgent public health situation and we simply cannot wait.”
“The majority of populations in our Region and worldwide still lack access to simple information about whether a product is excessive in sugars, sodium, saturated fats, trans fat or total fats,” said Anselm Hennis, Director of the Department of Non-communicable Diseases and Mental Health at PAHO. He added that such labelling is even more important now, as underlying conditions linked to poor diet can lead to life threatening complications from COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Secretary of Industry, Commerce and Competitiveness for Mexico, Ernesto Acevedo, detailed that the label warnings protect the rights of consumers to have truthful, extensive, simple, easily understood information about what the products are and what they contain. The Deputy Secretary added that Mexico adopted the labelling because of epidemic obesity that has affected health, the economy, and social and economic inequity.
PAHO has further highlighted that earlier this year, Mexico implemented the black octagonal warning labels that follow PAHO’s best practices which includes PAHO nutrient profile, a tool classified food and drink products that are in excess of free sugars, salt, total fat, saturated fat and trans-fatty acids.
In previous years, Chile, Peru and Uruguay adopted front-of-package warnings, and Brazil has taken a step in that direction. In Canada and Colombia, the warnings have been proposed for mandatory use. However, in the Caribbean, the region is in the final stages of adopting the warnings as part of regional standards, while Argentina is in the process of adopting comprehensive, robust legislation, which requires products to display warning labels and prevents such products from being advertised and banned from schools.
Notably, in the Mexican regulation and those under discussion in Argentina and the Caribbean, the PAHO nutrient profile criteria are being used to determine which products should have a warning. According to PAHO too, this allows consumers purchase decisions to align with the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations.
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