‘Pinoys want food warning labels’

MANILA, Philippines — A majority of Filipinos are in favor of adopting food warning labels in the country, health advocates said.

The Healthy Philippines Alliance (HPA) said findings of a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey it commissioned showed 66 percent of Filipinos are supportive of a policy that will implement food warning labels for pre-packaged and ultra-processed food and beverage products.

HPA is a coalition of civil society organizations fighting to prevent noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).

Out of this 66 percent, 39 percent expressed strong support for such a measure.

Moreover, 62 percent or 6 out of 10 Filipinos, across all demographics, areas, socio-economic and educational status, said that food warning labels or the black octagonal warning labels scheme are the most effective versus other labeling schemes, specifically the Nutri-score, Health Star Rating and Traffic Light.

Food warning labels directly identify which products have high or excessive amounts of sodium, sugar and saturated fats that can be harmful to health.

“The results established our citizens’ strong support for the implementation of food warning labels on packaged food and beverage products and manifested their interest to protect consumer health,” HPA said in a statement.

“The Alliance appreciates that the Department of Health and the National Nutrition Council have similarly identified front-of-package labeling as a priority policy initiative for the prevention of NCDs and we express full support to move this forward,” HPA convenor Jaime Galvez Tan said.

The HPA explained that an unhealthy diet and improper nutrition is a risk factor to developing NCDs like cancer, diabetes, heart and kidney disease.

“Sadly, our food environment has been saturated by pre-packaged ultra-processed foods. UPFs, more commonly known as junk food, are industrially formulated products with preservatives, artificial additives and are typically high in critical nutrients such as sugar, sodium and fats,” HPA pointed out.

“UPFs are linked to obesity, hypertension and NCDs. In the Philippines, 70 percent of all deaths are attributed to NCDs,” it added.

“There is mounting evidence that food warning labels are a powerful tool to influence consumer attitudes to avoid unhealthy food and to develop a preference for natural and minimally processed foods to protect health,” said Tan.

He added that other countries have already taken action to protect their people from ultra-processed foods. “Unfortunately, the Philippines has lagged behind in this area,” Tan said.

Food warning labels have been pioneered by Chile in 2016, after which other Latin American countries like Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Uruguay and Venezuela adopted and improved on the policy.