Jan. 14 (UPI) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration hopes “front-of-package” labeling will better improve the American population’s health, the FDA announced.
“Food should be a vehicle for wellness, not a contributor of chronic disease,” FDA Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Jim Jones said in a release on Tuesday.
Nearly 60% of American citizens have at least one chronic disease that drive up the nation’s $4.5 trillion in costs for annual health care.
The FDA’s rule proposal would, if finalized, require U.S. food manufacturers to add a front-of-package (FOP) nutrition label on most packaged food goods produced in the United States.
Chronic diseases — including cancer, diabetes and heart disease — are a leading cause of disability and death, U.S. health officials pointed out.
Its three-year date to take effect would be targeted at U.S. businesses with more than $10 million in annual food sales, or four years after its effective date for businesses with less than $10 million in annual revenue.
The proposal is part of the White House National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition and Health to reduce diet-related diseases by the year 2030.
According to FDA officials, this new proposal will play a “key role” in the federal agency’s nutritional agenda part of a government-wide effort to combat the nation’s chronic disease crisis.
On Tuesday, it was called “good news” on social media by Dr. Lisa R. Young, an award-winning nutritionist, author and adjunct professor in the department of nutrition and food studies at NYU Steinhardt.
It would become a federal policy three years after the effective date of a final version of the new policy rule following public comment.
If approved, it would give shoppers visible info on a food’s saturated fat, sodium and added sugars content, which U.S. heath officials pointed to as three nutrients directly linked with chronic diseases if consumed in excess.
Meanwhile, the Washington-based American Spice Trade Association and industry advocates lobbied the FDA in 2023 to allow spices to bear the label “healthy” under its nutritional guidelines.
And the FDA over the last few years took a number of other similar steps to review labeling and nutrition standards in a concerted effort to reverse negative health trends.
A 2023 FDA study of nearly 10,000 U.S. adults explored human responses to three types of FOP labels in order to identify which scheme better enabled study participants to make a quick and more accurate assessments.
But in addition to a goal of providing timely information to the public, “it’s possible we’ll see manufacturers reformulate products to be healthier in response to front-of-package nutrition labeling,” the deputy commissioner added.
“Together, we hope the FDA’s efforts, alongside those of our federal partners, will start stemming the tide of the chronic disease crisis in our country,” Jones stated.
Public comments on the proposed rule must be in by May 16 and can be submitted electronically. According to the FDA, all written comments should be identified with the docket number: FDA-2024-N-2910 and title: “Food Labeling: Front-of-Package Nutrition Information.”