Bernie Sanders seeks black labels for sodas and snacks. This is what they might look like

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is pushing the Food and Drug Administration to place warnings on unhealthy foods that alert consumers to their links to Type 2 diabetes and obesity, which would likely involve placing large black labels on some sodas, snacks and desserts.

Sanders wrote to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf earlier this month, in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, to request that the agency implement places “strong labels on the front of packages so that all consumers, especially children, can understand which products are harmful to their health.

Sanders did not specify what design the labels should have, but in his letter to Califf he supported designs similar to those in several Latin American countries that have been proposed by the Pan American Health Organization. These stop sign labels are intended to inform consumers that certain products contain high amounts of salt, saturated fat, sugar and calories.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 20 percent of children and adolescents ages 2 to 19, or 14.7 million people, are medically obese. Nearly 42% of adults over the age of 20 are obese, and more than 9% are severely obese.

Data on obesity in the United States has not been collected by the CDC since March 2020 due to disruptions to the health care system due to policy related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The FDA can and must do more to ensure that Americans, especially children, adolescents and their
parents, understand the health risks associated with the consumption of these unhealthy products and
ultra-processed foods,” Sanders said. “Other major countries around the world have moved aggressively in this area and there is no reason why the United States should be so far behind. »

Sanders cited several Latin American countries, such as Chile, Uruguay and Peru, that use black octagonal warning labels highlighting the high percentage of unhealthy chemicals in food and drinks.

Academic studies on the implementation of food labeling policy in Chile indicate that this policy has significantly accelerated the downward trend in the purchase of unhealthy foods and the marketing of unhealthy foods to children. However, researchers were unable to fully disentangle the effects of the labeling policy from other healthy food policies implemented in Chile at the same time, including changes to school lunch programs.

Sanders noted in his letter to the FDA that warning labels about the contents of foods and beverages may not be enough to deter consumption, citing the effectiveness of warning labels on tobacco products that explicitly link ingestion to cancer.

“Tobacco labels in the United States do not say “high in tar, high in nicotine, high in carcinogens.” “Cigarettes are said to cause cancer,” Sanders wrote.

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Sanders told Califf that the HELP committee would hold a hearing on the FDA’s role in the healthy food market, hinting that Califf himself would be called to testify before the panel.

“The HELP Committee will hold a hearing in the near future to discuss what FDA can
do to fulfill its mission of protecting and advancing public health by ensuring that food and
the drinks Americans consume do not harm them,” Sanders wrote to Califf. “I look forward to your testimony at this hearing.”