Journal article
How many foods in the UK carry health and nutrition claims, and are they healthier than those that do not?
- Abstract:
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Objective: This study aimed to measure the prevalence of different types of health and nutrition claims on foods and non-alcoholic beverages in a UK sample and to assess the nutritional quality of such products carrying health or nutrition claims.
Design: A survey of health and nutrition claims on food packaging using a newly defined taxonomy of claims and internationally agreed definitions of claim types.
Setting: A national UK food retailer: Tesco.
Subjects: 382 products randomly sampled from those available through the retailer's website.
Results: 32% (95% CIs: 27-36%) of products carried either a health or nutrition claim; 15% (11-18%) of products carried at least one health claim and 29% (24-33%) carried at least one nutrition claim. When adjusted for product category, products carrying health claims tended to be lower in total fat and saturated fat than those that did not, but there was no significant difference in sugar or sodium levels. Products carrying health claims had slightly higher fibre levels compared to products without. Results were similar for comparisons between products that carry nutrition claims with those that do not.
Conclusions: Health and nutrition claims appear frequently on food and beverage products in the UK. The nutrient profile of products carrying claims is marginally healthier than for similar products without claims suggesting claims may have some but limited informational value. The implication of these findings for guiding policy is unclear, future research should investigate the 'clinical relevance' of these differences in nutritional quality.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 166.7KB, Terms of use)
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(Preview, Supplementary materials, 261.8KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1017/s1368980015002104
Authors
- Funding agency for:
- Kaur, A
- Scarborough, P
- Mizdrak, A
- Rayner, M
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
- Journal:
- Public Health Nutrition More from this journal
- Volume:
- 19
- Issue:
- 6
- Pages:
- 988-997
- Publication date:
- 2015-07-09
- Acceptance date:
- 2015-06-08
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1475-2727
- ISSN:
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1368-9800
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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pubs:531456
- UUID:
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uuid:c824ad86-8a20-49ed-879d-4b830fba3800
- Local pid:
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pubs:531456
- Source identifiers:
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531456
- Deposit date:
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2016-04-25
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Kaur et al
- Copyright date:
- 2015
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © The Authors 2015 This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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