Canada’s new food labelling system ‘extremely effective,’ expert says

Assistant professor at TMU’s School of Nutrition Jennifer Lee says labeling items high in sugar, sodium, and saturated fats helps consumers.

Some groceries sold in Canada will now have mandatory warning labels to help consumers make more informed choices about their diets.

The labels, which were mandated to begin Jan. 1, signal if products contain high levels of saturated fat, sodium, or sugar, using a prominent black and white warning on the front of the package.

Health Canada says that these ingredients can lead to stroke, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, high-blood pressure and cancer. The label must appear on “prepackaged foods that meet or exceed set levels for saturated fat, sugars or sodium,” Health Canada said in a statement.

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“The use of the symbol is a different way to represent the information,” Jennifer Lee, assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Nutrition, told CTV News Channel last week. She explained that the new warnings are based on the nutrition label found on the back of most packaged foods.

Packaged food in Canada generally has an ingredient and nutrition label, which shows how much of a suggested daily value of key nutrients is included in the product. When a product has more than 15 per cent of a nutrient’s daily value, Health Canada calls that “a lot,” while having less then five per cent is “a little.”

Determining whether a product will need a saturated fat, sugar, or salt warning on its front is, “generally speaking, based on the 15 per cent threshold,” Lee said.

“We’ve seen globally, not just in Canada, having that easy-to-understand symbol at the front of the food packages is an extremely effective way to communicate information about foods,” Lee said. She added that the increased visibility helps consumers be more conscious about saturated fats, sodium, or sugar as she says Canadians consume those “excessively.”

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Canada’s tightening waistbands

Canada is among the many nations worldwide that struggle to make healthy dietary choices, which according to a recent study could lead to 60 per cent of adults globally being obese by 2050. Processed foods with high levels of saturated fats, sugars, and salts, can contribute to obesity, Health Canada says.

This trend extends to Canadian children, where there has been a rise in obesity in recent years. Health Canada warns that with similar physical health risks found in obese adults, “a high BMI (body mass index) in childhood can have adverse psychosocial impacts, such as depression, lower self-esteem, and behavioral disorders,” adding that childhood obesity is “strongly associated” adult obesity.

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