Prevention of childhood obesity through appropriate food labeling.

Autor: Bhattacharya S; Independent Public Health Researcher, Dehradun, India. Electronic address: bsudip1774@gmail.com., Saleem SM; Independent Public Health Researcher, Srinagar, Jammu, and Kashmir, India. Electronic address: saleem.900@gmail.com., Bera OP; Principal Consultant, Global Health Advocacy Incubator, United States. Electronic address: dromprakashberapgi@gmail.com.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Clinical nutrition ESPEN [Clin Nutr ESPEN] 2022 Feb; Vol. 47, pp. 418-421. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Dec 16.
DOI: 10.1016/j.clnesp.2021.12.010
Abstrakt: Background and Aim: The prevalence of childhood obesity has increased across the globe and millions of the school children are either obese or overweight. This has happened due to rapid nutritional transition over the past few decades. As childhood obesity is multi-factorial in origin and unhealthy foods, packaged foods, high calorie foods are considered as important behavioral risk factors. The aim of this article is to opine whether appropriate food labeling is one of the preventable methods in prevention of childhood obesity.
Methods: A thorough literature search on childhood obesity articles on well-known search engines like Cochrane Library, PubMed, Google Scholar and Embase electronic data base was done to reach an opinion and derive a conclusion.
Results: Among many interventions to prevent NCDs, it is evident that effective FPL can reduce the burden of NCDs, including childhood obesity. Additionally, it was found that during purchasing any food items, consumer knowledge/information plays a crucial role for food purchasing which is commonly recognized by food labels. The problems with the existing food labels are-these are misleading/not completely understandable/not clearly visible to the consumers due to multiple reasons like low literacy levels, diverse languages, small font size and many more. Globally, there exists multiple food labeling system which are consumer friendly. It is the right time for us to join other countries in experimenting with creative food labelling systems. The Chilean system being the gold standard in this regard.
Conclusion: It is evident that good food labeling can effectively reduce the burden of non-communicable disease/childhood obesity (indirect evidence) by empowering customers to buy the right/healthy foods. In a country like India, where literacy among consumers is competitively high and languages are diverse, the same approach should be replicated in order to prevent or halt the rising trend of childhood obesity.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest Nil.
(Copyright © 2021 European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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