What's on the label?

With one in five British adults currently classified as obese and childhood obesity rates rising, we can no longer ignore the UK's growing weight epidemic. The Commons Health Select Committee has produced an action plan for the food industry and supermarkets to play their part in tackling the problem, which included introducing a voluntary ban on junk food ads targeted at children, the promotion of healthy eating messages and the clearer labelling of food products. Tesco is the first supermarket to respond with its announcement of a traffic light labelling scheme on ingredients such as salt, fat and sugar and time will tell if other supermarkets follow its lead.

While Good Housekeeping applauds the report for raising awareness and Tesco for taking greater responsibility, we feel the traffic lighting of food is too simplistic. The demonising of food as 'bad' does not help people to eat a balanced diet -- surely the best way to beat obesity. For example, under one traffic light system being mooted, cheese, a high-fat food, would receive a 'red' label, as would other foods such as avocado and nuts. These foods have nutritional value and, when eaten in moderation, play an important part in a balanced diet.

Good Housekeeping's 2001 Food Attitudes Survey found more than half of our readers think food labels provide inadequate information on the ingredients they contain. We call for more accurate and usable labelling of food. Our suggestions include:

Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about the health implications of the food they eat. If they feel food labelling is giving them insufficient information to make an informed choice, they may not buy. It's a call to action -- and it's in the industry's interests to meet their needs.

Joanne Finney is a food writer at Good Housekeeping Magazine, http://www.goodhousekeeping.co.uk​