Structural responses to the obesity and non‐communicable diseases epidemic: Update on the Chilean law of food labelling and advertising

Abstract

Chile approved the law of food labelling and advertising in 2012; this law aims to address the obesity epidemic, particularly in children. The implementation details were published in 2015, and the law was implemented finally in 2016, as described in the current article. Regulated foods were defined based on a specially developed nutrient profiling, which considered natural foods as gold standard. For liquid foods, amounts of energy, sugars, saturated fats, and sodium in 100 mL of cow's milk were used as cut-offs. For solid foods, values within the 90th -99th percentile range for energy and critical nutrients were selected as cut-off within a list of natural foods.A stop sign stating "High in <nutrient>" was chosen as warning label for packaged regulated foods. Regulated foods were also forbidden to be sold or offered for free at kiosks, cafeterias, and feeding programme at schools and nurseries. Besides, regulated foods cannot be promoted to children under 14 years. A staggered implementation of the regulation was decided, with nutrients cut-offs becoming increasingly stricter over a 3-year period. These regulatory efforts are in the right direction but will have to be sustained and complemented with other actions to achieve their ultimate impact of halting the obesity epidemic.

Impact of front-of-pack nutrition labels on consumer purchasing intentions: a randomized experiment in low- and middle-income Mexican adults

“…We used the nutrition criteria established by each of the FOP labels included in our study to assign the labels to food products [23,36,37]. Nonetheless, we used the 2016 Chilean regulations to classify nutrient content as high in the MTL and the WL [37].…”

Obesity: Health and Economic Consequences of an Impending Global Challenge

“…To examine countries' experience with taxes, the World Bank conducted nine case studies on dietary policies in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, and the state of Kerala in India. Chile has the highest consumption of sugary beverages in the world ), a very high junk food intake, and high overweight/obesity prevalence (Cediel et al 2017;Corvalán et al 2018;. High levels of SSB consumption, combined with high overweight/ obesity rates and increasing prevalence of related diseases, have prompted the introduction of diet-related taxes in five of the nine cases studied (table 5.2 presents an overview).…”

“…The WHO nutrient profiling model can serve to identify the foods and beverages to be taxed, or a similar system could be adapted as various WHO regional offices have done (PAHO 2016). Chile created its nutrient profiling model earlier; this is highly impactful and has been adapted by Israel, Peru, and Uruguay (Colchero et al 2016;Corvalán et al 2013Corvalán et al , 2018. This model is based on grams and milliliters of food (versus the PAHO use of milligrams of salt per 1,000 kilocalories), limited its warning labels to four components to allow an adequate size for each logo, and did not use the labels for controversial issues (for example, diet sweeteners and total fat content) as some other profile systems have done.…”

“…Food regulations through front-of-package nutrition labels would inform consumers about the nutrient content of food. As in Chile, governments could consider passing a law on food labeling that requires food labels similar to a traffic stop sign to identify products high in sugars, trans-fats, sodium, and calories (Corvalán et al 2018). Governments would need to set up a monitoring and evaluation framework to examine the effect of taxation on purchase, consumption, revenues, and population health.…”

Anticipatory effects of the implementation of the Chilean Law of Food Labeling and Advertising on food and beverage product reformulation

“…Thus, a product can have up to four “high in” FOP warning labels, one for each critical nutrient and calories. It took several years to resolve the discussions around the implementation of the law, with final implementation being in June 2016. It specified that limits for solids (per 100 g) and liquids (per 100 mL) for critical nutrients and energy would become increasingly strict over a 4‐year period (2016‐2019).…”