Nutrition labels and health claims: the global regulatory environment

This review of the global regulatory environment around nutrition labelling and health aims to provide an overview of existing international, regional and national regulations and a description of past and future regulatory developments. It compiles and categorises international, regional and national regulations, and compares differing regulatory systems in 74 countries and areas. It also reviews regulations on the quantitative declaration of ingredients (information which indicates to consumers the proportion of healthful and less healthful components of the food product). A secondary objective is to provide an overview of the different approaches to developing and implementing these regulations and highlight some of the associated public health issues.

The study finds that:

• nutrition labelling can be an effective means of helping consumers to make healthful food choices, although existing evidence is insufficient
• regulations can play a crucial role in enhancing the potential for nutrition labelling and health claims to promote health
• countries have many different approaches to select from when constructing a regulatory framework
• regulations should be developed with long-term dietary improvements across populations as their underlying goal
• the effectiveness of nutrition labelling and health claims in improving national dietary patterns relies largely on a motivated and educated public to make healthful choices but this approach has limitations
• if there is to be significant change, action on nutrition labels and health claims need to be part of an integrated approach that tackles the increasing rates of diet-related non-communicable diseases at a population level, as well as targeting individuals.