Nutrition literacy gap (IMAGE)

Elsevier

Nutrition literacy gap

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A new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine assessed consumer understanding of six different nutrition labels: (1) positive (reference group) (2) Nutrition Info (similar to FDA’s proposal); (3) high-in nutrient (warnings for high levels of nutrients of concern); (4) positive + Nutrition Info; (5) positive + high-in; (6) spectrum (rates products from least to most healthy). While the FDA-style “Nutrition Info Box,” showing levels of saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar, was found to work best overall, its effectiveness depended on consumers having higher nutrition literacy. By contrast, the “spectrum” labels that rate foods from least to most healthy worked similarly well for consumers with both high and low nutrition literacy.

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Yuru Huang

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