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Objectives:The European Union (EU)-funded project Food Labelling to Advance Better Education for Life (FLABEL) aims to understand how nutrition information on food labels affects consumers' dietary choices and shopping behaviour. The first phase of this study consisted of assessing the penetration of nutrition labelling and related information on various food products in all 27 EU Member States and Turkey.Methods:In each country, food products were audited in three different types of retailers to cover as many different products as possible within five food and beverage categories: sweet biscuits, breakfast cereals, pre-packed chilled ready meals, carbonated soft drinks and yoghurts.Results:More than 37 000 products were audited in a total of 84 retail stores. On average, 85% of the products contained back-of-pack (BOP) nutrition labelling or related information (from 70% in Slovenia to 97% in Ireland), versus 48% for front-of-pack (FOP) information (from 24% in Turkey to 82% in the UK). The most widespread format was the BOP tabular or linear listing of nutrition content. Guideline daily amounts labelling was the most prevalent form of FOP information, showing an average penetration of 25% across all products audited. Among categories, breakfast cereals showed the highest penetration of nutrition-related information, with 94% BOP penetration and 70% FOP penetration.Conclusions:Nutrition labelling and related information was found on a large majority of products audited. These findings provide the basis for subsequent phases of FLABEL involving attention, reading, liking, understanding and use by consumers of different nutrition labelling formats.

The findings to date indicate that nutrition labelling is widespread in Europe but formats and level of detail may differ between countries and products. Upcoming studies within FLABEL will decipher whether and how the various elements of nutrition labels affect attention, liking, understanding, use and dietary choices, and what the implications are for stakeholders such as policy makers.

© 2015 British Nutrition Foundation.Europe recognises the need for technological innovation along with the importance of bridging the gap between science and society. The European Commission has developed a strategy to foster public engagement and a sustained two-way dialogue between science and civil society, and has set up a framework for Responsible Research and Innovation. The EU-funded project INPROFOOD aimed to find new ways to establish dialogue and mutual learning among stakeholders meant to inform subsequent work and future initiatives towards Responsible Research and Innovation. More specifically, INPROFOOD aimed to: (1) increase understanding of the landscapes of food and health innovation research programming; (2) adapt, test and evaluate the application of different stakeholder engagement methods to the area of food and health innovation research programming, which included European Awareness Scenario Workshops, PlayDecide games and an Open Space conference; and (3) to develop an action plan to progress towards Responsible Research and Innovation in this domain. The latter entailed a so-called Mobilisation and Mutual Learning Action Plan, which lays down a concrete framework for inclusive stakeholder involvement at different stages of the research and innovation process, with tangible key actions in five priority areas

The field of Mobile health (mHealth), which includes mobile phone applications (apps), is growing rapidly and has the potential to transform healthcare by increasing its quality and efficiency. The present paper focuses particularly on mobile technology for body weight management, including mobile phone apps for weight loss and the available evidence on their effectiveness. Translation of behaviour change theory into weight management strategies, including integration in mobile technology is also discussed. Moreover, the paper presents and discusses the myPace platform as a case in point. There is little clinical evidence on the effectiveness of currently available mobile phone apps in enabling behaviour change and improving health-related outcomes, including sustained body weight loss. Moreover, it is unclear to what extent these apps have been developed in collaboration with health professionals, such as dietitians, and the extent to which apps draw on and operationalise behaviour change techniques has not been explored. Furthermore, presently weight management apps are not built for use as part of dietetic practice, or indeed healthcare more widely, where face-to-face engagement is fundamental for instituting the building blocks for sustained lifestyle change. myPace is an innovative mobile technology for weight management meant to be embedded into and to enhance dietetic practice. Developed out of systematic, iterative stages of engagement with dietitians and consumers, it is uniquely designed to complement and support the trusted health practitioner-patient relationship. Future mHealth technology would benefit if engagement with health professionals and/or targeted patient groups, and behaviour change theory stood as the basis for technology development. Particularly, integrating technology into routine health care practice, rather than replacing one with the other, could be the way forward.