“Our findings highlight that PACE labeling is a potentially important policy-based approach to strengthening current approaches to food labelling,” said Professor Daley.
“The next steps are to test whether PACE labeling reduces purchases of high-calorie foods and beverages in different food settings, such as restaurants, vending machines, cafes and pubs.”
The food industry opposes change
But the proposal has failed in Australia. The manufacturers said The Australian Financial Review they would not accept any change and the Australian Food and Supermarket Council he declined to comment.
The director of the food policy program at the George Institute for Global Health, Simone Pettigrew, said better alternatives already existed.
“The work we’ve done in over 20 countries now basically shows that there are two things you really need to do to signal people to change their behavior when they buy food, like at that point of purchase.”
He said color-based labels, such as Europe’s traffic light system and Nutri-score system, were effective. Nutri-score assigns letter grades to products and uses colors from green to red.
Professor Pettigrew said that labels showing physical activity would have to be exaggeratedly large.
“The work we’ve done shows that people are just confused about all the terminology of ‘kilocales’, calories, kilojoules and energy. It doesn’t resonate well,” he said.
“Because of the confusion of technical terms, we tried to use the word ‘energy’ alternatively, but that has very positive connotations and people see that word and think it’s a good thing.
“The other thing we found with physical activity labels is that parents are starting to think that they are really good to give to kids for energy during sports and other types of activities. That’s not what kids need for good nutrition to be active.”
Australia’s health star rating system was developed by state and federal governments in collaboration with manufacturers, public health and consumer groups. Food companies use a rating calculator to assign stars to their products.
The International Congress on Obesity begins in Melbourne on October 18.
Research from the World Obesity Federation last month estimated the economic impact of being overweight at 2.19 percent of global GDP. The estimated per capita economic loss in 2019 ranges from $US6 ($9.50) in low-income countries to $US1,110 in higher-income countries.
