Traffic-light food labels

Beard, Trevor C; Nowson, Caryl A; Riley, Malcolm D

doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2007.tb00781.x

Topics

To the Editor: To control the modern epidemics of preventable disease, Australia’s dietary guidelines recommend moderation in four nutritional areas — fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt. In spite of this, the obesity and diabetes epidemics seem unstoppable.1 This is hardly surprising — these guidelines seldom reach the public, and they recommend “moderation” without defining it.

1 University of Tasmania, Menzies Research Institute, Hobart, TAS.
2 School of Health Sciences, Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC.
3 Baker Heart Research Institute, Melbourne, VIC.

Correspondence: Trevor.Beard@utas.edu.au

Competing interests:

Malcolm Riley is the Nutrition Manager for Dairy Australia.

1. Zimmet PZ, James WPT. The unstoppable obesity and diabetes juggernaut. Med J Aust 2006; 185: 187-188. <MJA full text>
2. UK Food Standards Agency. Signposting. http://www.food.gov.uk/foodlabelling/signposting/ (accessed Aug 2006).
3. Joint National Committee. The seventh report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure. JAMA 2003; 289: 2560-2572.
4. Sacks FM, Svetkey LP, Vollmer WM, et al. Effects on blood pressure of reduced dietary sodium and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet. N Engl J Med 2001; 344: 3-10.
5. Riley MD, Beard TC. Choose foods low in salt. In: National Health and Medical Research Council. Dietary guidelines for Australian adults. Canberra: NHMRC, 2003: 133-150. http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/_files/n33.pdf (accessed Nov 2006).

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