maria l. loureiro, idega-usc, spain & nilf, norway
DESCRIPTION
Comparing Experiences of Nutritional Labeling to reduce the Incidence of Obesity and Overweight Problems in Europe and U.S. Maria L. Loureiro, IDEGA-USC, Spain & NILF, Norway. Understanding the causing factors of obesity. Obesity Growth Currently: BMI growth. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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Comparing Experiences of Nutritional Labeling to reduce the Incidence of
Obesity and Overweight Problems in Europe and U.S.
Maria L. Loureiro,
IDEGA-USC, Spain & NILF, Norway
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Understanding the causing factors of obesity
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Obesity Growth Currently: BMI growth
%pop BMI>25 in OECD countries
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Year
1977
1979
1981
1983
1985
1987
1989
1991
1993
1995
1997
1999
2001
%pop BMI>25
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Percentage of Individuals Obese and Overweight in Selected
Countries
Figure 1: Incidence of Overweight Problems Internationally
6046.1
51.141.7
36.248.8
44.852.2
43.157.6
48.342.7
6264.5
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
country
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Obesity by Age and Country: ECHP
Source: Sanz-de-Galdeano, A., 2005
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The Fat Tale Problem….
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Obesity by Age Group
Source: Sanz-de-Galdeano, A, 2005
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Obesity as an economic externality
• Estimates of the cost of obesity per capita of the population differ from country to country, but a rising pattern is emerging.
• Direct costs of obesity are estimated to be as high as:– Sweeden US $45 per capita per year, – US$ 35 in Germany– US$ 32 in the Netherlands – US$ 69 in Belgium, close to 6% of health care costs. In addition, these
costs are rising dramatically. – US$ 25-31 in UK( 2002)– US$ 157 in USA– 1% of EU GDP!!!...and rising!
(World Health Organization Media Center, 2006)
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Obesity as an economic externality
• The social and economic consequences of obesity are serious.
• Social problems (stigma effect): obesity affects in a negative and statistically significant way earnings and wages in the EU, U.S. and in the U.K, particularly for females (Harper, 2000; Cawley, 2004, Brunello and O´Homes, 2007), as well as personal relations.
• Economic problem with externalities: direct medical costs in OECD are rising
– U.S. studies indicate the health care for overweight and obese individuals costs an average of 37 percent more than for people of normal weight.
• Other related illnesses to obesity are also growing.
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Source: Andreyeva, T., P.C. Michaud, A. Van Soest.
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Why Economic Instruments?
• Economic intervention is justified when there are market failures:– In the obesity epidemic there are clear costs (externalities)
being paid by the whole society– Information may not be sufficient to make rational choices:
misleading information, or asymmetric information.– Not all agents may be able to make rational choices: the
case of children
• If one or more of the previous premises is violated, then government intervention is justified.
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Types of Instruments
• Information instruments– Nutritional Labeling– Nutritional Guidelines– Educational Programs
• Pricing Instruments– Taxes – Subsidies
• Other economic regulations to limit certain input usages or sales of outputs, advertising to children, etc.
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Information Instruments: Nutritional Labeling
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Types of Nutritional Information on Food Labels
– Nutritional Panel– Nutrient content claims-”light” 30% fewer
calories, low in sodium, etc.– Voluntary food profiling labels
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Nutritional labeling: The US Nutritional Panel
specify the number of servings per container and the key nutrients of a serving in a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet (expressed as percentage of the Daily Value). Serving sizes on the label are standardized so that consumers can comparenutritional information between products.
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International Concerns about Nutrition Labeling Practices
• In the EU provision of nutritional information is done on voluntary basis.
• EU Nutritional Labeling Directive is under review. A proposal is expected during 2007.
– In a EU recent survey, it was found that 56% of all food products included tabular nutrition labeling and 44% had no tabular nutrition labeling. Inconsistent labeling information
• Only those products healthier use labels (signaling and disclosure) ant these become marketing tools.
• In the United States the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) was passed in 1990.
• The resulting nutrition labelling regulations, which became fully effective in 1994, provide consumers with an unprecedented amount of nutrition information by mandating nutrition labelling on virtually all processed foods.
• The Nutrition Facts Panel´s contents, regulated by the FDA, are specific to the food product or food product category
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The European Food Labels: Food Profiling
•Non standarized
•Non-comparable information
•Still Voluntary, unless a nutritional claim is madeThe Keyholder symbol applied in
Sweeden and Norway by the ICA retail group
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Nutritional Labeling coverage EU
• Large Geographical Differences:
– UK: 75 % of products are labeled– Spain: 54% of foods carry a label– Germany: 50% of foods are labeled– Poland: 41% of foods carry labels
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Are labels effective: Who reads them?
• Not all consumers are used to read labels
• Spanish study (Loureiro, Gracia and Nayga, 2006): who read the labels?
• Only obese and overweight female with higher levels of education usually read food labels while shopping for food.– Previous U.S. studies arrive to the same conclusions.
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Measurements of Direct Effects: Labeling on Health
• Problems with assessment:– We need to have a good measure of the
dietary intakes. Is that really possible?• Measurement error can be really large due to
problems with 24 hour recall, diaries, complication of food frequency questionnaires.
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Assessing the Benefits of Nutritional Labeling
• Most previous studies were conducted in the US. They have shown that:– After the NLEA 1991, unhealthy foods were
transformed to healthier foods given that they were obligated to disclose their nutritional properties (Mathios,1995).
– Labels help consumers selecting healthier food choices (Kim, Nayga and Capps, 1995).
– Labels increase knowledge of nutritional properties of foods among consumers.
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Benefits of Labeling
• However, in spite of these encouraging results, recent studies show limitations of the NLEA to reduce obesity.
• Variyam (2006) finds that the implementation of the NLEA was associated with a decrease in body weight and the probability of obesity among non-Hispanic white women.
• One thing is to pass a cost-benefit analysis and another is to change radically consumers´ behavior (Golan et al.,2000).
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European Preferences Towards Food Labeling
• Spanish study (Loureiro, Gracia and Nayga, ERAE, 2006) shows that consumers are supportive of future food nutritional labeling. – On average, in a sample of 400 representative
shoppers the mean WTP for nutritional labels carried by energy dense food was about 11% of the initial price.
– Individuals watching their diets due to medical reasons and obese were willing to pay on average more.
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European Preferences Towards Food Labeling
• However, choice experiments show that the presence of a known brand is more important than the level of nutritional information provided when facing shopping decisions.
• Can marketers savvies offset more stringent regulations with better promotion campaigns and more interesting product design?
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Health Claims: Are those good for you??
• Recently regulated at EU level. Need scientific consensus
• Are there perverse effects linked to marketers strategy of highlighting information related to only one food attribute and ignoring all others (vitamin levels?)
• Low fat, fat-free, etc.
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Nutritional Labeling in Restaurants
• Being currently debated in the U.S. The U.S. Surgeon General (2001) “increase availability of nutrition information for foods eaten and prepared away from home”.
• Great importance of food away from home in Western societies. Americans spend about 46% of their food dollars in FAFH (Variyam, 2006).
• Fast food: generally higher calories and saturated fat.
Product Calories Price$
Double
Quarter Pounder
760 2.99
Cheese Burger
330 0.99
Big Mac 590 2.39
Crispy Chicken
550 2.79
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Burger King Hamburgers XXL
• Spain chastises Burger King for advertising giant burger
• 971 kilocalories on average, which is "almost 50 percent of the energy requirement of an active teenager".
• Advertising promotion: It's awful being a vegetarian, right?"
• The XXL as a Whopper "with two enormous portions of flame-broiled meat that will give you all the energy you need to take the world by storm."
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Information Instruments: Summary
• New guidelines may help consumers to select healthier food choices
• US one of the countries is the world with more stringent legislation regarding food labeling. Number of labels when up considerably while obesity became a serious problem.
• Labeling is not a panacea. Additional efforts should be made to educate individuals about proper ways of eating.