Nestle Criticizes Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling at IOM Meeting
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) held an open session on April 9, 2010, to gather information on front-of-package (FOP) nutrition rating systems and symbols. Speakers included representatives from (i) the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and U.K. Food Standards Agency, (ii) the American Heart Association, (iii) ConAgra Foods, the General Mills Bell Institute of Health & Nutrition and Unilever, and (iv) Texas A&M University, the University of Maryland, the University of Washington, and the Yale Prevention Research Center. In addition, New York University Professor Marion Nestle addressed concerns about nutrition rating systems and other perspectives on FOP labeling.
According to SHB attorney Sarah Sunday, who attended the meeting, FDA provided an update on its continuing assessment of FOP labeling and indicated that after failing to release guidance as scheduled, the agency intends to complete its consumer research in May. But Nestle registered opposition to the adoption of any FOP scheme. Referencing commentary that she recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Nestle recommended eliminating all food labeling claims and providing more comprehensive calorie information. Failing that, she would reportedly favor a traffic light approach to FOP labeling such as the one used in the United Kingdom. Additional information on Nestle’s February 2010 JAMA article appear in issue 339 of this Update.
Meanwhile, Nestle has also chronicled the development of menu-labeling laws in an article appearing in the April 7 New England Journal of Medicine. Titled “Health Care Reform in Action—Calorie Labeling Goes National,” the article reports that past efforts to encourage restaurant chains to reformulate products or reduce portions have failed partly because companies responded by downsizing their largest offerings while bumping up their small sizes. Comprehensive menu labeling, however, “demonstrates that larger portions have more calories,” a conclusion that Nestle contends is “not intuitively obvious.” She concludes that despite some “logistic problems and modest benefits, calorie labeling is well worth the trouble. Here, at last, is help for explaining the relationship of food energy to body weight.”
