Hunger-Undernutrition Blog

An Explanation of the US's New Nutrition Labels and Possible Global Implications

By Nicole Graham, Humanitas Global

World Hunger Day, an initiative introduced by the Hunger Project in 2011, will be honored on May 28, 2016 to celebrate sustainable solutions to hunger and poverty. This year, the focus is on good nutrition. This encompasses improved child and maternal health, stronger immune systems, safer childrearing, and breaking a cycle of poverty. Currently, more than 795 million people around the world do not have enough to eat and 2 billion suffer from micronutrient deficiencies.

Ninety eight percent of the world’s hungry live in developing countries. The United States certainly does not qualify as one of these countries, but its policymakers can play an important role in setting an example for prioritizing good nutrition. While considered one of the richest countries in the world, malnutrition is still rampant in the US. In 2014, there were 46.7 million people living in poverty, up from 37.3 million in 2012. 19.9 million Americans live in extreme poverty, living on a cash income that equates to half of the poverty line amounts.

Because malnutrition is defined as the “faulty nutrition due to inadequate or unbalanced intake of nutrients or their impaired assimilation or utilization”, this includes the United States’ struggles with diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.

Yet last week the United States undertook an important action to reform the way its consumers learn about the food they eat. On May 20, 2016, First Lady Michelle Obama announced the first redrawing of nutrition information on food labels since the 1970s. Decades later, portion sizes in the United States have expanded significantly but nutrition labels did not reflect the same growth. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally acknowledged this, and health officials and advocates succeeded at modernizing the labels with contemporary American diets.

The FDA proposed changes in 2004, but they did not survive the lobbying of powerful food and beverage industries. Therefore, these nutrition label modifications can be considered a large victory and a precedent-setting move. Calories are now listed in large print, and are easier to read. Additionally, serving sizes listed are more comparable to the amount of the food that people realistically consume, and added sugars are now featured.

Via U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Most food manufacturers will be required to implement the label changes by July 2018. Producers with less than $10 million in annual sales will have an additional year to comply. These improvements are intended to make nutrition labels easier to read and understand, which will help consumers make better informed decisions in the grocery store. According to health officials, one-third of adults in the United States are obese. This epidemic has caused the rates of diabetes, heart disease, cancers and strokes to skyrocket.

The American Beverage Association and the Grocery Manufacturers Association have both offered positive feedback, indicating that they are looking forward to working with the FDA and Mrs. Obama on implementation. However, the Sugar Association’s response has been understandably resistant, citing that they were “disappointed” in the FDA’s decision to require an added sugars line in the new labels.

Nutrition labels have been hailed as a global instrument to promote healthier eating habits and a focus on nutrition. Every year, the European Food Information Council compiles a Global Update on Nutrition Labeling, examining factors such as front-of-pack (FOP) (also examined in one of our earlier blogs) versus back-of-pack (BOP) labeling, the type and number of nutrients labeled, and whether the label provides interpretive guidance to the consumer. According to the 2015 report, the precipitous rise of obesity has drawn attention back to nutrition labels. More and more countries are debating FOP labeling, or opting for these changes voluntarily.

Large progress has been made between 2007 and 2014, with more and more countries switching from policies of voluntary nutrition labels to mandatory labels. Now, the majority of countries have government stipulations requiring companies to list the nutrition levels of their products. The new labels in the United States could set an important precedent. Modifications could drive positive conversation, asserting that not only should the presence of the label matter, but its contents as well.

World Hunger Day seeks to end hunger by empowering people to become their own agents of change. Only with a bottom-up approach will communities see progress. Nutrition labels are a government solution with great impacts on the people. When citizens possess improved access to information about the food they eat, they are the drivers behind better nutrition, better decisions, and healthier communities.

Chicago Council 2016 Global Food Security Symposium: Feeding an Urbanizing World

By Savanna Henderson, Humanitas Global 

Our world fails to feed 795 million people daily and further fails to adequately feed another 2 billion. This is problematic on its own, but is especially worrisome considering the fact that by 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population will be living in cities. With producers abandoning the farm, populations crowding cities, unacceptable losses and waste of food abound, and degradation of arable land and natural resources amidst striking numbers of malnutrition and hunger, how are we to achieve nutrition and food security? This was the focus of The Chicago Council’s 2016 Global Food Symposium: Growing Food for Growing Cities: Transforming Food Systems in an Urbanizing World.

Sara Menker, Founder and CEO, Gro Intelligence, approached the current condition of our food system as one punctuated by a lack of understanding of the system. Sharing with us a quote by Henry Kissinger, she emphasized the focus we have paid to pieces of a whole, rather than taking a holistic and systematic approach, leading to a malfunctioning system. Throughout the symposium, innovative and emerging solutions, special remarks and in-depth discussions all contributed to what is needed and how we will get there if we are to transform and create a truly sustainable food system.

The third report of the Chicago Council’s series on food and agriculture systems includes recommendations for the U.S. government to take a lead in developing this transformative food system. The four recommendations are built off of previous recommendations with a focus on policy actions. The recommendations include:

1. Develop, implement, and strengthen policies for global food security. Among the multiple actions included within this recommendation is one to increase support for capacity strengthening of national and subnational policymakers and implementers. We’re probably all familiar know with the knowledge that if women had equal access to inputs, they could increase their yields by 20-30%, which has wider-reaching implications on community health and well-being. Investing in capacity-building to support gender equality alone is critical to ensuring a sustainable food system and needs to be on the forefront of policy action.
2. Enable and leverage private-sector investment that includes small-scale farmers and rural SMEs in the food system. During a discussion on partnerships, Kavita Prakash-Mani, Grow Asia, made the statement, “if it takes a village to raise a child, it certainly takes all of us to support smallholder farmers”. As producers of nearly all the food consumed in Asia and Africa, smallholders need continued and additional support in the form of inclusive investments and enterprise development.
3. Improve regional trade capacity to build efficient and sustainable food systems across national borders through trade policy. The amount of global food loss is unacceptable, especially when it can be attributed to restrictive regional trade policies. Food should move efficiently, safely and affordably across borders, not become stuck and then lost at borders. A key policy action to support more effective trade calls on the U.S. to leverage its trade relationships and expertise to support effective and sustainable regional trade.
4. Strengthen research support and expand the research agenda to build food systems. Reiterating some of the above recommendations, there are specific research components that must be addressed including: improved transportability of perishable foods, improved harvesting and storage technologies, and soil health and restoration of depleted soils.

While the focus of this year’s Global Food Symposium was on a food system to support the health and well-being of the burgeoning urban populations, it is vital that we maintain attention on rural smallholders. While crucial to food production, they also have the means to reduce poverty when provided adequate support and technology. The Council Report shares that small-scale agriculture development is twice as effective in reducing poverty as development investments in other sectors.  

Videos and commentary from the event can be found here and on the Global Food for Thought Blog.