Categorizing Foods by Relative Healthfulness: A Scoping Review of Front of Pack Labelling

Abstract

Worksites are a suitable platform for employees to engage in behavioral change towards a healthy lifestyle by the modification of the food environment. Grading canteen foods at worksites into categories of relative healthfulness is an important indicator in the planning of food environmental interventions. However, in the absence of mandatory front of pack (FOP) labelling in South Africa, categorizing packaged and cooked food at worksite canteens is challenging. A scoping review was conducted on FOP labelling schemes to inform the selection of a FOP labelling scheme best suited for canteen foods at worksites in South Africa. The results of the scoping study, tabulated into a narrative summary, showed that there are several well-developed approaches to classifying foods by relative healthfulness through nutrient profiling and different forms of expression. It is recommended that because worksite canteen food sales in South Africa include both packaged and cooked food, and that a general test of various labelling schemes should be conducted to determine if a directional change is made towards purchasing healthier foods. Grading foods using interpretational aides such as an adapted FOP nutrition label to the South African context into categories of relative healthfulness can be a practical tool to inform food environmental interventions at worksite canteens and beyond.

Rotulagem frontal de embalagem de alimentos da América do Sul: Uma revisão de escopo

“…No entanto, existe um intenso debate para identificar qual seria o melhor formato de FOPL (Kühne et al, 2022;Croker et al, 2020;Braesco & Drewnowski, 2013). Além das particularidades populacionais de cada país, que dificultam uma padronização (Hercberg et al, 2022;Singh et al, 2021), a maioria dos estudos sobre FOPL é realizada em países de alta renda, o que não pode refletir divergem a realidade sul-americana (Kühne et al, 2022;Croker et al, 2020;Braesco & Drewnowski, 2013;Hercberg et al, 2022;Singh et al, 2021). Além disso, mesmo diante dos esforços do Codex Alimentarius para fornecer orientações globais sobre FOPL, o conflito de interesses entre os setores governamentais e industriais representa um risco significativo para a formulação de estratégias mais adequadas e coordenadas na área de saúde pública (Thow et al, 2019).…”