Structural responses to the obesity and non‐communicable diseases epidemic: Update on the Chilean law of food labelling and advertising

Authors: C. Corvalán; M. Reyes; M. L. Garmendia; R. Uauy

2018 – Chile approved the law of food labelling and advertising in 2012; this law aims to address the obesity epidemic, particularly in children. The implementation details were published in 2015, and the law was implemented finally in 2016. Regulated foods were defined based on a specially developed nutrient profiling, which considered natural foods as gold standard. For liquid foods, amounts of energy, sugars, saturated fats, and sodium in 100 mL of cow’s milk were used as cut‐offs. For solid foods, values within the 90th ‐ 99th percentile range for energy and critical nutrients were selected as cut‐off within a list of natural foods. A stop sign stating “High in ” was chosen as warning label for packaged regulated foods. Regulated foods were also forbidden to be sold or offered for free at kiosks, cafeterias, and feeding programme at schools and nurseries. Besides, regulated foods cannot be promoted to children under 14 years. A staggered implementation of the regulation was decided, with nutrients cut‐offs becoming increasingly stricter over a 3‐year period. These regulatory efforts are in the right direction but will have to be sustained and complemented with other actions to achieve their ultimate impact of halting the obesity epidemic.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/obr.12802

The effects of the Chilean food package policy on aggregate employment and real wages

Authors: Guillermo Paraje / Arantxa Colchero / Juan Marcos Wlasiuk / Antonio Martner Sota / Barry M. Popkin

January 2021 – In 2016 the Chilean government instituted the world’s most aggressive food policy package to prevent obesity and nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases. The package included comprehensive integrated policies on child marketing, school-related controls, and front-of-package warning labels for foods and beverages high in saturated fats, sugars, calories, and/or salt. This study assesses the impact of these policies on labor market outcomes (real wages and aggregate employment) after 18 months. Our results show that aggregate employment and average real wages were not affected by these regulations when compared to sectors unlikely to be affected by the policies. The study finds that sectors in which products are subject to labeling may have seen a decline in production but show no reduction in employment on aggregate. These results are consistent with evidence from research on the influence of other types of regulations (for example, how taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages affect employment) in other countries and cast doubts on the concerns that firms commonly raise about the negative impact of such regulations on labor market outcomes.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919220302220?via%3Dihub

Technical Proposal for Nutrition Labeling

September 2016 – Powerpoint technical proposal on Nutritional Food Labeling based on overweight individuals in El Salvador (in Spanish).

https://interamericanheart.org/Repository/26-09-16_propuesta_tecnica_etiqueda_nutricional_tania_tobar.pdf

The Label can be Better

Author: Instituto Brasileiro de Defensa do Consumidor

September / October 2016 – Scientific research identifies difficulties for consumers to understand nutritional information and obtains their opinion on what may change. The good news is that it is possible to generate a more understandable label and Brazil is on that path. (in Portuguese)

https://idec.org.br/em-acao/revista/rotulo-mais-facil/materia/o-rotulo-pode-ser-melhor

Knowledge and Use of Nutritional Labels on Industrialized Foods and Beverages in Mexico (in Spanish)

Authors: Lizbeth Tolentino-Mayo. Sofía Rincón-Gallardo Patiño. Liliana Bahena-Espina. Víctor Ríos. Simón Barquera.

May / June 2018 – Document the knowledge and use of the information of the different labels placed on industrialized products in Mexico. For this, a subsample of the National Survey of Health and Nutrition Midway 2016 was carried out, and a semi-structured questionnaire was applied. As conclusions of the work, the implementation of a fast-to-read and easy-to-understand front labeling with nutritional criteria was proposed that guarantee compliance with what is stated in official documents and the standardization of the percentage of sugar consumption to that recommended by the WHO or to a lesser amount.

https://www.saludpublica.mx/index.php/spm/article/view/8825

Building momentum: lessons on implementing a robust front-of-pack food label

A series of reports aiming to help policymakers overcome common barriers to implementing evidence-informed nutrition policy

Building momentum: lessons on implementing a robust front-of-pack food label

Restrictions on Marketing to Children

Powerpoint with different promotional images of product packaging showing the octagonal black warning label.

https://interamericanheart.org/Repository/fotossellos.pptx

Structural responses to the obesity and non‐communicable diseases epidemic: Update on the Chilean law of food labelling and advertising

Authors: C. Corvalán; M. Reyes; M. L. Garmendia; R. Uauy

October 2018 – Chile approved the law of food labelling and advertising in 2012; this law aims to address the obesity epidemic, particularly in children. The implementation details were published in 2015, and the law was implemented finally in 2016. Regulated foods were defined based on a specially developed nutrient profiling, which considered natural foods as gold standard. For liquid foods, amounts of energy, sugars, saturated fats, and sodium in 100 mL of cow’s milk were used as cut‐offs. For solid foods, values within the 90th ‐ 99th percentile range for energy and critical nutrients were selected as cut‐off within a list of natural foods. A stop sign stating “High in ” was chosen as warning label for packaged regulated foods. Regulated foods were also forbidden to be sold or offered for free at kiosks, cafeterias, and feeding programme at schools and nurseries. Besides, regulated foods cannot be promoted to children under 14 years. A staggered implementation of the regulation was decided, with nutrients cut‐offs becoming increasingly stricter over a 3‐year period. These regulatory efforts are in the right direction but will have to be sustained and complemented with other actions to achieve their ultimate impact of halting the obesity epidemic.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/obr.12802

Chile: Healthy country

Author: Guido Girardi

August 2017 – Presentation on health risk factors: the movement, development of law 20.606 on nutritional composition, advertising, and evaluation studies on the law.

https://interamericanheart.org/Repository/1.21chilepaissaludablegirardi.pdf