Heart Images on Food Labels: A Health Claim or Not?

Health claims on food labels are used by food manufacturers to inform consumers about the health effects of a product, and such claims can have notable effects on consumer preferences. According to regulatory definitions, health claims can be either worded or presented as images, but it is not clear under which conditions an image on a food label should be considered a health claim. This question has important practical implications, as the use of health claims is strictly regulated.

Global benchmarking of children's exposure to television advertising of unhealthy foods and beverages across 22 countries.

Restricting children's exposures to marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages is a global obesity prevention priority. Monitoring marketing exposures supports informed policymaking. This study presents a global overview of children's television advertising exposure to healthy and unhealthy products.

Understanding How Consumers Categorise Health Related Claims on Foods: A Consumer-Derived Typology of Health-Related Claims.

The Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (NHCR) EC No 1924/2006 aims to provide an appropriate level of consumer protection whilst supporting future innovation and fair competition within the EU food industry. However, consumers' interpretation of health claims is less well understood. There is a lack of evidence on the extent to which consumers are able to understand claims defined by this regulatory framework.

Nutrient Profiling Is Needed to Improve the Nutritional Quality of the Foods Labelled with Health-Related Claims.

Health-related claims on food products influence consumers and their food preferences. None of the European countries have restricted the use of health claims to foods of high nutritional quality despite the regulatory background provided by the European Union in 2006. We evaluated the nutritional quality of foods labelled with claims available in the Slovenian market using two nutrient profile models-Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) and European World Health Organization Regional office for Europe model (WHOE)-and compared the results to the nutritional quality of all available foods.

Total and Free Sugar Content of Pre-Packaged Foods and Non-Alcoholic Beverages in Slovenia.

Scientific evidence of the association between free sugar consumption and several adverse health effects has led many public health institutions to take measures to limit the intake of added or free sugar. Monitoring the efficiency of such policies and the amount of free sugar consumed requires precise knowledge of free sugar content in different food products. To meet this need, our cross-sectional study aimed at assessing free sugar content for 10,674 pre-packaged food items available from major Slovenian food stores during data collection in 2015.

Front of package symbols as a tool to promote healthier food choices in Slovenia: Accompanying explanatory claim can considerably influence the consumer's preferences.

Many nutrition and/or health symbols were introduced in different countries in the past years and Slovenia is no exception. The objective of our study was to examine familiarity with and perception of the Protective Food symbol (PF symbol) in Slovenia and to investigate consumers' associations related to the symbol, and the influence of symbols' appearance on their preferences. The study was conducted through online questionnaire with incorporated word-association tasks and conjoint analysis; GfK consumer panel and social media (Facebook) were used for recruitment of Slovenian adults (n=1050; 534 men, 516 women).

Changes in Average Sodium Content of Prepacked Foods in Slovenia during 2011-2015.

A voluntary gradual reduction in the salt content of processed foods was proposed Slovenia in 2010. Our objective was to determine the sodium content of prepacked foods in 2015 and to compare these results with data from 2011. Labelled sodium content and 12-month sales data were collected for prepacked foods ( = 5759) from major food stores in Slovenia.

Prevalence of Nutrition and Health-Related Claims on Pre-Packaged Foods: A Five-Country Study in Europe.

This study is part of the research undertaken in the EU funded project CLYMBOL ("Role of health-related CLaims and sYMBOLs in consumer behaviour"). The first phase of this project consisted of mapping the prevalence of symbolic and non-symbolic nutrition and health-related claims (NHC) on foods and non-alcoholic beverages in five European countries. Pre-packaged foods and drinks were sampled based on a standardized sampling protocol, using store lists or a store floor plan.