To make healthy food choices, consumers need accurate, easily available and understandable nutrition information. And we need it now.  Two-thirds of American adults are either overweight or obese.  Among children obesity has become epidemic.  We have to buy food for our families and ourselves, today and next week and the week after. We shouldn’t have to go to the store equipped with a magnifying glass, a calculator, a graduate degree in nutrition and a couple of hours to try to sort through the information on current nutrition labels.

CFA supported passage of the NLEA of 1987 and since 2002 has consistently urged FDA to update regulations to require a nutrition information label that provides important and thoroughly legitimate information in an easily digestible format on the front of food packages.  We need to be able to compare products and know immediately which offers the best balance of limited total calories and low levels of fat, salt and sugar. We look forward to learning more about the food industry’s new front of pack labeling initiative. Done right, a front-of-package label could be an important tool in helping reduce childhood obesity.