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Running Head: The importance of Food labeling.

The importance of food labeling

Sharon P. Sanchez
University of Texas at El Paso

Abstract
The paper review the importance of the food labeling like in old people that is sick for
example diabetes, cholesterol or even obesity on the people, among others and can people
prevent the sickness as allergies reading what is in the food you are going to eat and explain that
food labeling is information on the packages that tells you about the nutrients the food have, also
explains how it help you in your daily life in every person in the country. It helps kids, teenagers,
adults and old people in different things. It help you understand the different parts of the food
labeling and how it helps to you each one. This paper try to make you understand how important
is to your health understand the food label and that you should not take it lightly, like is nothing
important. In addition it talks also about the label in the restaurants menus if is good or bad to
have some kind of labels on it.

The importance of food labeling.

Everyone wants to be healthy, but theres also people who dont care about their health
and suffer from obesity or some kind of sickness like cholesterol, cancer etc. According to L.C.
Savage and R. K. Johnson (2006) Obesity accounts for approximately 400 000 deaths annually
in the USA .Eating healthy means choosing lots of different foods throughout the day to get all
the nutrients people need, and thank goodness food labeling exist and give the people all the
information they need. People that use food labels often have a higher dietary quality, based on
lower intakes of fat, and higher intakes of fruit and vegetables, when compared with those who
do not use food labels according to studies. (Savage and Johnson, 2006).
To begin food labeling is information on the packages that tells you about the nutrients
the food have like the calories, fat or other nutrients. The US Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) is the Government agency that provides federal oversight of the current food labelling
system it governs the labeling of many foods. . R. K. Johnson (2006) gives a little bit of history
of the food labeling. He states The implementation of food labelling, brought about by the
Nutrition Labelling and Education Act (NLEA) of 1990 (FDA 1990), revolutionized the
nutritional information available to American consumers. (Johnson, 2006,). FDA regulations
govern food labels. Detailed regulations govern, among other things, ingredient listings and
nutrition information. In both instances, foods that are not packaged are subject to different
requirements than packaged food.
Food label can seem confusing to some people maybe to other will be easy to understand,
but those that think that can be confusing is very easy to use and understand, food labeling
consist in eleven different parts, it can sound like there are a lot of things but not really. The food

label stars with the serving size the serving per container ,I think this is important because can
help the people with a portion control, secondly are the calories , then the total fat and the
cholesterol and sodium this two is important to those people that has some kind of sickness and
can control it. Then the fiber and sugars, this two are not less important because the fiber help
you go to the restroom and the sugar information is very important to those people that is sick of
diabetes that is most common in the elder people and something very important the protein and
lastly of all these steps are the vitamin section, know what vitamins has each food is important
because they help you a lot with your health.
Labels give you information that can help you decide what to choose as part of an overall
healthy eating plan. According to Rosso Grossman, M. (2015). When restaurants present nutrition
information for healthy menu options, consumers are likely to recognize the good source of
nutrition and select the healthier menu options over the less healthy options and it just the truth,
have information in the menu make you will think twice at the time people is on a restaurants,
and is a possibility that obesity can decrease.
In addition, food labeling not only gives people that information it also gives information
about the package of the food or the ingredients. The label must contain information about the
source (e.g., manufacturer), quantity, and name of the food and its ingredients, as well as
nutritional information. The European Commission's regulation of food labels was limited to
claims until very recently, although food producers voluntarily provided nutrition labels and
ingredient lists on most packaged foods (Miller and Cassady, 2015).
Food labeling is important to have, nutrition knowledge could be important for dietary
choice in other ways, for example, by having direct effects on food choice, without food label
information, or by impacting attitudes or beliefs, in every food because it makes people do

healthier choices of the time they are eating or can help you compare what food better to eat, like
the author Golan,Kuchler and Mitchell said a label is intended to help consumers differentiate
the labeled product from otherwise similar products , but not every person reads the food label.
Many people dont give too much importance of what the food label provide to you for
have a better health on average, 7085% of the American adolescent, college and adult
population read food labels at least sometimes (Marietta 1999; Byrd-Bredbenner 2000; Burros
2004; Huang 2004; as qtd. in Savage and Johnson, 2006,). People look at food labels for
different reasons, some people look it to know about their serving size, calories, the nutrients or
the percent daily value.
Eat on fast food restaurants or in any other restaurant has not be so good for peoples
health there are many reasons why we should avoid eat in fast food restaurants. For example
people that eat fast food tend to increase their chances of different kind of sickness like diabetes,
cardiovascular disease, cholesterol or other chronic problems. But is impossible to prohibit that,
is very important that restaurants gives you a feedback of what are you eating. The US
restaurant industry has responded to increased pressure for legislation obliging restaurants to
provide nutritional information at the point of sale, by voicing concerns about menu obstacles
(Riehle 2003).
Other concern that restaurants industry may have is the perceived decrease in sales may
occur if food labeling is introduce. For food not in package form, the required nutrition labeling
information shall be displayed clearly at the point of purchase (e.g., on a counter card, sign, tag
affixed to the product, or some other appropriate device). Some foods are too hard to label
individually, like in the restaurants is very hard to label the French fries or a slice of pizza, but
many grocery stores gives and show us nutrition information on bakery items etc.

Food labeling has different importance in our life. One of the importance is that can help
people prevent some sickness. Many people in the United States suffer from food allergies that,
at least at present, cannot be cured and food labeling can help these consumers identify and avoid
foods to which they are allergic and this now is a requirement Margaret Rosso Grossman says
that Packaged food labeled after 1 January 2006 must comply with allergen labeling
requirements. But also have to include packaged food requires nutrition information in a format
specified in detail in the regulation. Also can help to those people who is sick of diabetes, people
can get information on sugar and carbohydrate contents from the food label or also people on
low-fat diets can tell how much of nutrients are in some food.
A lot of elder people is sick for issues of food and for them is very important to look very
carefully what they are eating. In a study of Hampshire, Joerg; Freytag-Leyer, Barbara show
that nutrition information on food is (very) important to 86.9% of the target group. It is
important for them to know how to use or understand the information that the food label inform
us but Only 29.0% of the elderly people are able to calculate the amount of fat in a serving size
and only 23.2% evaluate the content of sugar in food properly (Hampshire 2011, Freytag-Leyer
2011). Some basic aspects shall be improved to secure responsible decisions towards health by
the elderly population: the legibility of the information on food, the trust in nutrition information,
and the nutrition knowledge about nutrients.
Is very important to every person in the United States and also world in general to have a
very good knowledge about food labeling and know about every nutrient information that has, it
will help a lot with peoples health and maybe obesity deaths can decrease a lot or also some
sickness that food may cause. There are many companies that sell a lot of similar products but
there are ones that are better for your health and food label will help you take that decision.

Efforts by FDA to develop regulations to improve nutrition labelling have focused on making the
information on the label useful, to consumers in light of current public health concerns and
useful to manufacturers for promoting foods that will contribute to a healthy diet.
Parents should teach their children the importance of food labeling even there are little,
the information on a food label can help manage a health condition, even is just a little
information. If you start to give the importance to that things when they grow up, it shouldnt be
hard to eat well as an adult and have a higher dietary quality. If every parents start give their
childs knowledge about this child and adult obesity will decrease and also deaths of sickness for
this kind of things. Parents dont should take this like is not important.
Also to elder people who are already sick of diabetes or cholesterol food labeling will
help them a lot to know what food they should be avoid to eat to dont get sicker. All people in
general dont need to much sugar our body doesnt need it, also sugar can add a lot of calories
that we dont need and putting attention to the food label will make you do smarter choices in
little things like these. Is really very important to make that food labels work for any person in
the country is to look at the entire label and not just read only one of the parts. An example is like
the sugar or the fat is in the product, people will may not be getting a full perspective or story
like how many calories has and the percent daily value.
In conclusion is very important to everyone to know about food labeling for your health,
and is not that hard to understand, is just some investigation, is important to start getting
knowledge since when there are kids until when there are old. Is important to all kinds of ages.
Is good to know to can have a good nutrition in each day of your life and also see if what people
buy is good for them, it maybe can help to the economy of the people, lots of times people think
that if is expensive is the best product, but you really dont know what is in the product in this

case the food, but knowing the meaning of each thing is on the food label you will make a better
choice. In addition to those food is also important that we have it in the restaurants menu.

References
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