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随着消费者现在比以往任何时候都更加注重健康，营养食品标签对于帮助我们在产品之间进行选择变得越来越重要。

鉴于营养科学在饮食与慢性疾病之间的联系（例如心脏病，食品药品监督管理局（FDA）（FDA）的最新进展，2016年5月发布了有关包装食品的新营养事实标签的规则，这将促进消费者的消费者。在选择食物方面做出明智的决定。到1月1日^stthis year, manufacturers with $10 million or more in annual sales must have switched to the new label. Those with less than $10 million in annual sales have until January 1^st2021 to comply.

与新的nutrition labeling rules在今年的踢球中，消费者将看到反映美国人实际饮食的标签。这些规则中列出的要求之一指出，标签的第一列必须根据产品的服务大小和第二列列出营养信息，并基于包装的整个内容。

Do nutrition labels influence healthier food choices?

There is little information on how food labels are used in real-life shopping situations, or how they affect dietary choices and patterns. It is important for consumers to understand what nutrition claims mean so that informed decisions on product choice can be made, supporting the argument that smarter labels and smarter policies are needed to make healthy eating the cheaper and more widely available choice.

Asystematic review最近出版BMC Public Health研究了与脂肪，糖和能量含量有关的营养主张会影响能量摄入和食物选择的证据。该研究的结果表明，这些主张可以塑造消费者对产品的健康性以及食品的预期和经验丰富的美味的知识。此外，营养主张还可以使适当的部分看起来更大，并导致低估食品的能量含量。

Front-of-package nutrition labeling

With the increased public interest in identifying healthier foods, U.S. food processors have been adding nutritional除了营养含量或健康索赔之外，向包装前（FOP）的信息提供了信息，在其他国家也可以看到一种标签。例子包括广泛地表明食物“健康”，“对您有益”或“更好的选择”的符号。和声称要在包装前列出的符号，该食物中的关键营养素。

Chile was the first country worldwide to implement a FoP warning label and several countries have followed this model. Astudydescribing the process of development for the Chilean FoP warning label looks at the visualization, understanding, and ability to modify intended purchase of different prototypes of warning labels. A black-&-white stop sign with a simple text indicating ‘Excess of ’ was identified as the best option to implement a warning message in the context of the Chilean Food Labeling and Marketing Law. In June 2016, the Chilean government implemented this FoP warning label (amending it to ‘High in ’) and several countries such as Uruguay, Peru, and Israel have approved the implementation of warning labels similar to this one.

Research suggests that consumers like FOP labeling, finding it to be a time-saver. In astudypublished inBMC Public Health,Jorge Vargas-Meza and colleagues compared the acceptability and understanding of labels used in Latin-America among low- and middle-income Mexican adults. The participants were assigned to one of three labels: Mexican Guideline Daily Allowances (GDA), Ecuador’s Multiple Traffic Lights (MTL), or Chile’s Warning Labels (WL) in red. The time participants took to choose the product was measured, as well as the differences in label acceptability and understanding. The GDA, which indicates the grams and percentages (according to the guideline-based daily intakes) per portion of kilocalories, saturated fats, other fats, sugars, and sodium, had the lowest acceptability and understanding among the labels tested. The MTL and the WL were more accepted and understood, and allowed low- and middle-income consumers to make nutrition-quality related decisions more quickly.

食品标签会影响健康行为吗？

购买粮食点的仅卡路里食品标签在激励人们改变饮食行为和增加体育锻炼方面取得了有限的成功。克里斯托弗·B·德里（Christopher B.结果studysuggest small positive effects for the Physical Activity Calorie Expenditure (PACE) labels on self-reported (~ 20% increase) and objective (~ 6% increase) physical activity. While the overall effects are modest, the results support the need for additional study on factors that may interact with intervention effects. The study also highlights the possibility that women and men respond differently to food labels.

Apilot randomized controlled trialcarried out in Singapore used an experimental web-based grocery store to test two FoP warning labels intended to reduce purchases of products high in sugar. The first label is an English language version similar to the one used in Chile, that shows a black stop sign with the words ‘high-in-sugar’在中心。第二个标签是基于文本的健康警告标签，类似于美国几个城市中考虑的标签，也类似于香烟上的警告标签，但没有随附的图形。基于文本的健康警告标签在购买的标签产品中产生了统计学上的显着降低，这表明FOP警告标签有可能减少对糖较高糖的需求的潜力。

Downsides

Surprisingly enough, nutrition claims labels may also be used to falsely give the impression that a product is healthy.

The WHO 5-a-day fruit and vegetable (FV) guidelines generally recommend consideration of fruit juice as only one FV portion regardless of quantity, for reasons based on the processing of nutrients and fiber breakdown.

如果产品声称包含您5天的FV的两个或更多部分，则应该来自多个水果或蔬菜。还应确保份量合适，饱和脂肪，盐和糖的量受到限制。

食物刺激uct labels which highlight the healthy component of a product can have positive impacts on healthy dietary profiles. However, if the ‘healthy component’ of a product is exaggerated, this could lead to negative effects.

With this in mind, researchers from Bournemouth University carried out astudypublished inBMC Public Health, which investigated the impact of a ‘3 of your 5-a-day’ versus a ‘1 of your 5-a-day’ smoothie product label on subsequent FV consumption. Using an acute experimental design, 194 participants (90 males, 104 females) were randomized to consume a smoothie labeled as either ‘3 of your 5-a-day’ or ‘1 of your 5-a-day’ in full, following a usual breakfast.

The authors found that exposure to a ‘3 of your 5-a-day’ FV label following a usual breakfast resulted in reduced subsequent FV consumption compared to exposure to a ‘1 of your 5-a-day’ label. This can probably be explained by the fact that consumers felt they had achieved higher adherence to the dietary goal by consuming the product with this label and therefore allowed themselves lower adherence with subsequent FV consumption.

The results of this study indicate the potentials dangers of providing exaggerated information on food product labels with regards to FV provision. Increased regulation may be required to ensure accuracy in these types of messages.

Eating out

As eating out has now become very common, and food served outside of the home is often of low nutritional quality, the FDA also oversees food labeling in restaurant menus.

虽然千卡(千卡)标签的食品和drink products sold in restaurant chains in the US is now mandatory, in store kcal labeling practices among major UK restaurant and takeaway chains have not been examined. In August 2018, researchers based at the University of Liverpool contacted, visited the website and/or retail outlets of major eating out and takeaway food chains in the UK, including full-service and fast-food restaurants, cafes and coffee shops. They examined the proportion of chains providing kcal information to customers at point of choice in store and the extent to which kcal information provision adhered to labeling recommendations. Theyfoundthat it is rare for eating out and takeaway chains in the UK to provide point of choice kcal labeling and when labeling is provided it does not adhere to recommended labeling practices.

Calorie information alone may not be sufficient to motivate behavior change, especially when making a decision at the point of purchase (such as in a fast food or cafeteria line) where distractions and time-pressures are common. Physical activity equivalents provided with calorie information may provide increased motivation for healthier food choice as previous research suggests that calorie information alone may not be sufficient for behavior change. Anthony J. Viera et. al. explored this idea in astudy与仅卡路里的标签对北卡罗来纳州三家工作地点食品餐厅购买点购买的速度食品标签的影响相比。他们发现，在工作日午餐期间，自助餐厅的顾客在他们的工作日午餐期间没有比接触卡路里的标签的卡路里更少的卡路里。为了确定体育锻炼等效物是否是现有卡路里信息的有用补充，以便提供更健康的食物选择所需的额外动机，因此需要在替代环境（尤其是快餐店）进行替代环境的未来研究。

您是否正在进行有关营养标签的研究？BMC Public Healthwould love to consider your work! Submit your manuscript here:https://www.editorialmanager.com/pubh