Chilean food supply sees substantial decreases in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat after front-of-package warning labels required on “high in” foods and drinks

A new study published this week in BMC Medicine examining changes in Chile’s packaged food supply under the country’s mandatory front-of-package warning label law finds sweeping product reformulation to contain less sugar, sodium, saturated fat, and calories. The amount of foods and drinks in Chilean stores that would need “high in” nutrient warning labels dropped from 71% before the law in 2015–2016 to 53% after the law’s third and most strict phase went into effect in 2020.

While the proportion of “high in” products and content of concerning nutrients decreased across all food and beverage categories, researchers saw the greatest reductions in sodium in savory foods and sugars in sweet foods and beverages. Changes in products’ saturated fat content were smaller; however, researchers did find a 20+ percentage point decrease in the proportion of nuts, snacks, and savory spreads requiring warning labels for high saturated fat content. They also found a greater than 20 percentage point drop in savory baked products, breakfast cereals, and savory spreads requiring “high in calories” warning labels.

“We know that before this law, there were almost no significant nutritional improvements in the packaged food supply,” said the study’s first author Natalia Rebolledo, PhD, assistant professor of nutrition at the University of Chile’s Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology. “We also know that voluntary labeling policies have produced minimal changes in product formulation. This study underscores how much more effective a mandatory warning label regulation can be.”

This study highlights one of several ways that front-of-package warning labels work to improve population nutrition: by encouraging the food industry to offer healthier products. Companies wishing to avoid adding warning labels to their packages have an incentive to reduce sugar, sodium, saturated fat, and calorie density in their products. Indeed, this study found that product changes increased as the regulation’s nutritional thresholds tightened with each phase.

Additionally, warning labels nudge consumers towards healthier options or portion sizes as they’re shopping or making food choices at home, and in Chile, the labels are also linked to companion policies that restrict marketing to children and ban sales or promotion in schools for any product with a warning label.

To track changes in the food supply, researchers at the University of Chile photographed thousands of packaged food and beverage products from supermarkets in Santiago, Chile every year from 2015 and 2020. They worked with researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to record nutrition facts panel information for these products, then analyzed how their nutritional profiles changed as the three increasingly strict phases of the Chilean labeling law came into effect.

This study is the latest in a series of policy evaluations showing improvements in the nutritional quality of Chilean’s food purchases, changes in social norms and knowledge around foods and drinks with warning labels, and significant drops in children’s exposure to harmful food marketing. Chile now serves as a model for countries aiming to combat high and rising rates of obesity and other nutrition-related diseases by improving the food environment.

---

This research was supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies at part of the Food Policy Program, with additional support from INTA-UNC, INFORMAS, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and the ANID/Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico-FONDECYT Postdoctorado.

STUDY 1 AUTHORS

Natalia Rebolledo
Pedro Ferrer-Rosende
Marcela Reyes
Lindsey Smith Taillie
Camila Corvalán

---

Read more in BMC Medicine

---

MORE RESEARCH FROM CHILE:

Chileans bought less sugar, salt, saturated fat, and calories at the grocery store after trailblazing warning label law, with high compliance from the food industry Read more…

---

Products changed, but not prices, under Chile’s Law of Food Labeling and Advertising Read more…

---

Children in Chile saw 73% fewer TV ads for unhealthy foods and drinks following trailblazing marketing restrictions Read more…

---

After Chile’s labeling and marketing law, drink purchases contained less sugar and more non-nutritive sweeteners, but overall sweetness stayed the same Read more…

---

Study finds no negative economic impact from Chilean food labeling and advertising law Read more…

Two new studies from researchers at the University of Chile and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have added to the evidence that Chile’s front-of-package nutrient warning labels are an effective way to nudge shoppers towards healthier food choices.

The first, published in PLOS Medicine, evaluated Chileans’ grocery purchases during Phase 2 of Chile’s warning label law and found that households bought 37% less sugar, 22% less sodium, 16% less saturated fat and 23% fewer total calories from products with warning labels.

The second study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that food and beverage companies in Chile have largely complied with the country’s front-of-package warning label law: In the final and most nutritionally strict phase of the law, researchers found that 94% of products required to carry front-of-package warning labels to indicate high content of sugar, saturated fat, sodium, or calories actually had the appropriate labels on their packages in stores.

Purchase changes

To estimate how Chileans’ shopping choices changed after Phase 2 of the law, researchers at the University of Chile and UNC-Chapel Hill compared data on actual purchases — gathered from 2,844 households in Chile from 2013 to 2019 — to hypothetical food purchases had the law not gone into effect (modeled based on pre-policy trends). Each product in the dataset was profiled by trained nutritionists for nutritional content and ingredients, then categorized as either having or not having a warning label requirement under Chile’s law. They then calculated the differences between the nutritional profile of what purchases were actually made vs. the profile of the expected purchases without a labeling law.

While decreases in purchases of targeted nutrients were partially offset by increases in purchases from products without warning labels, the total change seen across all purchases with and without warning labels was still a significant improvement from pre-policy. Compared to expected purchases had the law not been implemented, Chileans bought 20% less sugar, 14% less sodium, 10% less saturated fat and 8% fewer total calories overall.

For calories and sugar, decreases were the greatest among beverage purchases, including 54% fewer calories bought from warning-labeled drinks. Food purchases, on the other hand, had greater decreases in sodium and saturated fat.

“Our findings confirm what we saw in the earliest phase of the law — that people bought less of the concerning nutrients targeted by warning labels — but we can also see now that these changes were even more pronounced in Phase 2,” said Lindsey Smith Taillie, PhD, associate professor of nutrition at UNC-Chapel Hill and the study’s first author. “This tells us that the healthy shifts Chileans made in their shopping habits were maintained or even improved more over time.”

Researchers also found that decreases in purchases of targeted nutrients were very similar across different socioeconomic groups, suggesting that Chile’s policy did not disproportionately advantage or disadvantage any one group.

Food industry compliance

To measure whether food and beverage companies in Chile were complying with warning label law, researchers at the University Of Chile’s Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology reviewed a set of nearly 10,000 products available in supermarkets in Chile during 2020. They identified which products should have a warning label based on their nutritional content (i.e., if they contained added sugars, sodium, or saturated fat and exceeded set nutrient or calorie limits), then observed whether each package requiring warning labels actually displayed them.

Researchers found that 63% of Chile’s packaged food supply had warning labels, with the two most common labels being “high in energy” (found on 39% of products) and “high in sugars” (on 35% of products). A similar portion of products had one warning label (23%), two labels (20%), or three labels (20%), but only 0.5% of products featured all four warning labels.

They also found that compliance was high — 93% for products requiring warning labels for being high in saturated fat, sodium, or energy and 96% for products requiring a high in sugar warning. Two specific food groups stood out for having lower compliance with the labeling law: non-sausage meat products (e.g., hamburgers) with 84% compliance and soups with 85% compliance.

High industry compliance with this mandatory front-of-package labeling law compared to low uptake of voluntary labeling programs such as Health Star Rating labels (found on only 36% of products in Australia and 30% of products in New Zealand) highlights the strength of mandatory labelling policies.

“Our study’s findings show that food industry is able to make changes to their front-of-package labels when this is mandated by the government and there are clear implementation and monitoring guidelines,” said the study’s first author Natalia Rebolledo, PhD, assistant professor of nutrition at the University of Chile’s Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology. “Continuous monitoring is essential for the success of these policies.”

Proliferation of policies

Chile’s trailblazing 2016 food policy package requiring black “stop sign” warning labels on foods and beverages high in nutrients of health concern ignited rapid adoption of eight similar policies throughout the Americas, with more labels currently under development around the world. The country’s innovative law also featured the world’s most comprehensive national restrictions on food marketing to children and banned the sale or promotion of products with warning labels in schools. Other countries have followed suit by incorporating some of these policy elements into their own laws. For example, Mexico followed Chile’s lead when it implemented similar front-of-package nutrient warnings in 2019 and forbid the use of child-appealing characters on packages with warning labels.

These studies are the latest in a series of evaluations that show how the country’s policy package led to improvements in the nutritional quality of Chile’s food supply, changes in social norms and knowledge around foods and drinks with warning labels, and significant drops in children’s exposure to harmful food marketing — all achieved without negative impacts on product prices or employment and wages. Chile’s approach now serves as a model for other countries aiming to improve the food environment to support better population nutrition and health.

Policymakers, health advocates, and researchers in Chile also continue to build on their successes with new interventions to improve public health. In July 2024, the country began requiring warning labels on alcoholic beverages that disclose calorie counts and warn consumers not to drink while driving, if pregnant, or if under 18 years of age. This law will be complemented by advertising restrictions beginning in 2026. In the past year, researchers also piloted a program that will provide low-income Chileans with funds to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables from local neighborhood markets, both supporting the local economy and increasing access to healthier food options.

“We believe that Chile needs to continue leading the efforts for promoting healthier diets,” said Camila Corvalán, MD, PhD, professor of public nutrition at the University of Chile’s Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology and principal investigator of both studies. “This requires advancing the implementation of other food environment policies that discourage the consumption of ultra-processed foods but also support families — especially those with higher vulnerability — in accessing natural foods for example through fruits and vegetable subsidies.”

---

This research was supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies at part of the Food Policy Program, with additional support from INTA-UNC, INFORMAS, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (Fondecyt Regular and Fondecyt Postdoctorado).

STUDY 1 AUTHORS

Lindsey Smith Taillie
Maxime Bercholz
Barry Popkin
Natalia Rebolledo
Marcela Reyes
Camila Corvalán

---

Read more in PLOS Medicine

---

STUDY 2 AUTHORS

Natalia Rebolledo
Pedro Ferrer-Rosende
Marcela Reyes
Lindsey Smith Taillie
Camila Corvalán

---

Read more in the American Journal of Public Health

---

MORE RESEARCH FROM CHILE:

Products changed, but not prices, under Chile’s Law of Food Labeling and Advertising Read more…

---

Children in Chile saw 73% fewer TV ads for unhealthy foods and drinks following trailblazing marketing restrictions Read more…

---

After Chile’s labeling and marketing law, drink purchases contained less sugar and more non-nutritive sweeteners, but overall sweetness stayed the same Read more…

---

Study finds no negative economic impact from Chilean food labeling and advertising law Read more…

Despite extensive product reformulation after Chile began requiring warning labels on the front of less-healthy food and drink packages, Chilean consumers saw no significant change in food and beverage prices associated with the policy in the first year and a half. This was the main finding of a new study from researchers at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Universidad de Chile, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that examined price changes after the Law of Food Labeling and Advertising took effect in 2016.

After Chile began mandating warning labels on products high in calorie density or added sugars, salt, or saturated fat, some food and beverage manufacturers changed the nutritional composition of their products to avoid the label requirement. These reformulations could have led to changes in product prices in two ways, according to first author Guillermo Paraje, professor of economics at the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile: “Reformulation could have increased firms’ costs, leading to higher prices if companies passed on the cost to consumers. Additionally, consumers may have been attracted to reformulated products without warning labels, increasing their demand and hence, their prices.”

Researchers compared prices of products with and without warning labels to a control group of products that remained unregulated (did not require warning labels) throughout the study period. They used pricing information from a large database containing prices for packaged food purchases from over 2,500 households from January 2014 to December 2017 (before and after the labeling law took effect). A team of trained nutritionists reviewed and categories all the purchased products by regulation status, i.e., whether they would be required to carry one or more warning labels. Researchers then analyzed changes before and after the law began in both levels and trends of absolute prices using the Laspeyres Price Index.

They found no significant change in prices of labeled products relative to unlabeled products. Rather, prices for both product groups continued to follow their pre-regulatory trends or changed in similar ways following the law. Researchers also compared these price changes within different “shopping baskets” or preferred foods and drinks for different socio-economic groups, and similarly found no significant differences in price changes.

“A common argument we hear from industry is that regulations like this are too costly and hurt consumers and the economy,” said senior author Barry Popkin, W. R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Nutrition at UNC-Chapel Hill. “We see here that Chile’s law did not lead to more expensive prices on healthier options, and we’ve seen in previous studies that there was no impact on employment or wages.”

This study adds to a growing body of evidence on the impacts of Chile’s Law of Food Labeling and Advertising, which in addition to requiring front-of-package warning labels also restricts marketing for unhealthy foods and bans their sale or promotion in schools. For example, previous research has found that the policy package was associated with decreased calories, sugar, sodium and saturated fat purchased from regulated foods and drinks as well as significant drops in children’s exposure to TV advertising for regulated products. More long-term evaluations of the fully implemented regulation are expected in the coming year.

---

This research was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

AUTHORS

Guillermo R Paraje
Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

Daniela Victoria Lucía Montes de Oca Carreño
Universidad de Chile

Camila Corvalán
Universidad de Chile

Barry M Popkin
UNC-Chapel Hill

---

EVALUATIONS OF PRODUCT REFORMULATION IN CHILE

Changes in the amount of nutrient of packaged foods and beverages after the initial implementation of the Chilean Law of Food Labelling and Advertising: A nonexperimental prospective study Read more…

---

Changes in the use of non-nutritive sweeteners in the Chilean food and beverage supply after implementation of the Food Labeling and Advertising Law Read more…

Chilean policies aimed at reining in unhealthy food marketing are succeeding in protecting children from the onslaught of television advertisements (TV ads) for these products, according to new research. The country’s multi-phased regulations, which began in 2016, have led to a 73% drop in children’s exposure to TV ads for regulated foods and drinks (those that exceed legal thresholds for calories, sugar, salt or saturated fat) by 2019. During this time, the number of ads for unhealthy foods dropped 64% on all TV programs and 77% during children’s programming. Researchers also found that 67% fewer unhealthy food ads used child-directed creative content such as cartoons, characters, toys or contests, which are also prohibited under the country’s laws.

These and other findings from researchers at the University of Chile, Diego Portales University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill underscore both the potential and need for strict rules around marketing to build healthier eating habits. The study also highlights the importance of a key policy addition contributing to the regulations’ success: The initial Law of Food Labeling and Advertising in 2016 limited child-directed creative content in any marketing and prohibited companies from placing TV ads for regulated products during programs attracting a child audience. In 2018, Chile extended this prohibition to a full “daytime” ban across all TV from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. While researchers saw a decline in advertising for unhealthy foods during earlier phases of the law (in 2017 and early 2018), the significantly greater drop following the full daytime ban is noteworthy.

Key findings:

• Total TV advertising dropped 64% for unhealthy foods and drinks (i.e., those high in calories, sugar, salt and/or saturated fat) from 2016 (pre-regulation) to 2019, after the full 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. ban began.

• TV advertising for unhealthy products during children’s programming dropped 77%
  from 2016 to 2019.

• Children viewed 73% fewer TV ads for regulated products in 2019 compared to 2016.

• The number of TV ads for unhealthy foods and drinks that used prohibited child-directed content (e.g., cartoon characters, prizes, games) dropped 67% from 2016 to 2019.

• For all outcomes, impacts were significantly greater after the full 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daytime advertising ban began in 2018 compared to earlier restrictions during children’s programming, only (in 2017 and early 2018).

“Focusing on child-directed ad content and child-directed programming to reduce children’s exposure to unhealthy food advertising does work to an extent, based on what we’ve seen in Chile, but children are simply exposed to much more than this,” said Francesca Dillman Carpentier, PhD, W. Horace Carter Distinguished Professor at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media and the study’s first author. “To markedly reduce the amount of unhealthy food promotions children view, we see that it takes a bold move like Chile’s 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. ban to be effective. The number of unhealthy food ads on TV, as well as kids’ exposure to them, was greatly reduced after Chile added the daytime ban on these ads.”

This study’s findings underscores a weakness of nearly all governmental restrictions on TV advertising for unhealthy foods worldwide: Most focus on very narrow windows of time or programming, leaving children exposed most of the day and night to targeted ads for unhealthy foods and drinks. (See below.) This study provides evidence that countries could significantly strengthen existing policies by expanding TV restrictions to complete bans. Countries considering introducing policies to regulate food marketing can also learn from the Chilean experience to protect children more effectively from ad exposure.

Chile enacted marketing controls in 2016 as part of an ambitious, comprehensive policy package aimed at reducing childhood obesity and other health risks by creating a healthier food environment. The Law of Food Labeling and Advertising also mandated “stop sign” warning labels on packages for unhealthy foods and banned their sale or promotion in schools. This remains one of the most ambitious regulatory frameworks in the world aimed at tackling rising nutrition-related diseases and soaring health care costs, and many policymakers and public health advocates worldwide have been watching to gauge the policy package’s effectiveness.

Other studies evaluating the combined effects of Chile’s marketing restrictions, warning labels and school ban have yielded similarly promising results: A study of household grocery purchases found a 24% drop in calories purchased in the first year (during the most lax period of the law’s three-phased nutritional criteria) and a 37% reduction in sodium purchased. Focus groups indicate that parents are being encouraged by their children to avoid buying foods with warning labels. Students reduced their sugar, saturated fat and sodium intake in schools — albeit with some evidence of compensation outside of school settings. And marketing restrictions also led to the removal of child-directed marketing strategies from nearly half of all “high-in” breakfast cereals to just 15% in the first year of the law.

“The Chilean experience has shown us that rigorous food marketing regulations work to reduce kids’ exposure to TV food advertising,” said co-author Lindsey Smith Taillie, PhD, associate professor and associate chair of academics in the Department of Nutrition at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Gillings Global School of Public Health.

“Looking to the future, we need to figure out how to monitor and regulate the digital food marketing environment, as kids increasingly shift their attention to smartphones and other online content.”

Key messages:

This research was supported primarily by Bloomberg Philanthropies at part of the Food Policy Program, with additional support from INTA-UNC, INFORMAS, and CONICYT Fondecyt.

AUTHORS

Francesca R. Dillman Carpentier
Fernanda Mediano Stoltze
Marcela Reyes
Lindsey Smith Taillie
Camila Corvalán
Teresa Correa

---

Read the study in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity

---

RESOURCES

Read more about the evidence for restricting marketing for non-essential foods and drinks high in sugar, salt, saturated or trans fats, or calorie density.

---

Compare existing policies around the world aimed at restricting unhealthy food marketing to children.

---

MORE RESEARCH FROM CHILE:

After Chile’s labeling and marketing law, drink purchases contained less sugar and more non-nutritive sweeteners, but overall sweetness stayed the same Read more…

---

Study shows Chilean policy package led to declines in purchased calories, sugar, fat, and sodium Read more…

---

Study finds no negative economic impact from Chilean food labeling and advertising law Read more…

---

Sugary Drink purchases plunge following Chile’s new food law Read more…

Two recent studies conducted by researchers from the Global Food Research Program at UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Chile have found that in the first phase of Chile’s Law of Food Labeling and Advertising, consumers’ beverage purchases contained less sugar and more non-nutritive sweeteners (e.g., Aspartame, Stevia, or Sucralose), but overall beverage sweetness stayed the same.

The requirement under Chile’s law for products high in calories or added sugar, salt, saturated fat to carry a front-of-package warning label has prompted the food and beverage industry to reformulate and introduce new products in order to avoid regulation. For example, companies have reduced the amount of added sugars in drinks to fall below the law’s sugar threshold, while replacing some of that sugar with non-nutritive sweeteners to maintain a similar taste. One study found that the share of beverages in Chile containing non-nutritive sweeteners increased by more than 10% after the law came into effect.

Taste test: beverage sweetness

In a study published in Frontiers in Nutrition in October 2022, researchers found that Chile’s policies were not associated with changes in overall sweetness taste of the beverages consumers bought, despite evidence of product reformulation to contain less sugars and more non-nutritive sweeteners (which can taste 10–20,000 times sweeter than sugars).

“We wanted to look at overall change in sweetness to understand what consumers were being exposed to, as a result of reformulation,” said Natalia Rebolledo, postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Research in Food Environments and Prevention of Nutrition-Related Chronic Diseases (CIAPEC) at the University of Chile and the study’s first author. “We focused on beverages because they are the main dietary source of added sugars and non-nutritive sweeteners in the Chilean diet.”

For this study, researchers analyzed the weekly grocery purchases of over 2,000 households before and after the labeling law began and evaluated the total sweetness of purchases. They did this by creating a “sweetness index” to measure and compare levels of non-nutritive sweeteners, total sugars, and total combined sweetness in each beverage purchased, taking into account the unique levels of sweetness tastes from non-nutritive sweeteners and sugars. The team used data from the Chilean Nutritional Facts Panel, which provided the actual amounts of total sugars and non-nutritive sweeteners included in the drinks purchased by study households.

Key findings during Phase 1 of the law:

This is the first study to analyze whether beverage sweetness changed based on the type of sweetener used (sugars and/or non-nutritive sweeteners) after the implementation of the Law of Food Labeling and Advertising in Chile.

Sweetener purchases

The team’s next study, published in Current Developments in Nutrition in December 2022, examined changes in purchases of foods and beverages sweetened with non-nutritive and caloric sweeteners after Phase 1 of the law.

Using the same dataset of weekly grocery purchases from over 2,000 households, researchers analyzed the sweetener content of purchased foods and beverages before and after the labeling and marketing law began. They created four product categories based on the types and combination of sweeteners used in each product purchased:

1. No added sweeteners used;
2. Caloric sweeteners used, but no non-nutritive sweeteners used;
3. Non-nutritive sweeteners used, but no caloric sweeteners used; and
4. Both caloric and non-nutritive sweeteners used.

Researchers then analyzed products purchased products in each category before and after the law.

Key findings during Phase 1 of the law:

This is the first study to analyze the change in purchases of sweeteners in food and beverages after the implementation of the Law of Food Labeling and Advertising in Chile.

Both of these studies add to previous research evaluating the impact of Chile’s Law of Food Labeling and Advertising on intake, including a study from the same research team finding that preschoolers increased their non-nutritive sweeteners intake by 14 percentage points in the first year of the law.

Rebolledo says of their findings, “It is positive that beverages did not get sweeter as a result of higher non-nutritive sweetener use. It appears that both the beverage industry and consumers are substituting caloric sweeteners with non-nutritive sweeteners, which could have long-term health impacts that we need to better understand. We need to continue monitoring the following phases of the law to see if Chileans changed their purchasing habits after the requirements for warning labels and marketing became stricter.”

---

This research was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, National Institutes of Health, National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT), and Becas Chile Doctorado 2017.

AUTHORS

Natalia Rebolledo
Maxime Bercholz
Linda Adair
Camila Corvalán
Shu Wen Ng
Lindsey Smith Taillie

---

What are non-nutritive sweeteners?

Non-nutritive sweeteners are sweeteners that have intensely sweet taste and typically do not contribute calories or are very low in calories. Non-nutritive sweeteners can be naturally occurring/derived from plants (e.g., sorbitol, xylitol, erythritol, stevia glycosides, monk fruit extract) or synthetic/”artificial” (e.g., aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, or acesulfame potassium).

---

FACT SHEETS

Read more about the evidence for front-of-package labels and marketing restrictions.

---

Learn more about Chile’s policies and our evaluation work there.

In a new study published in PLOS ONE, Drs. Arantxa Colchero, Guillermo Paraje, and Barry Popkin explore the possible impacts of a Chilean tax levied on products that currently carry warning labels and other regulation under the Law of Food Labeling and Advertising. The country has had a sugary drink tax in place since 2014, but it uses different sugar thresholds than the warning label law to determine which products will be regulated:

In the study, Colchero, Paraje, and Popkin simulated a tax on foods and drinks using the more comprehensive nutrient profiling model and found that taxing products with warning labels — i.e., ultra-processed junk foods and sugary drinks — would likely lead to significant drops in purchases of these products. The authors’ findings also suggest potential for raising substantial revenue, which could in turn be used to fund health or other welfare-related expenditures.

This simulation has implications beyond Chile: Any country that has implemented or is considering adopting nutrition-related policies such as front-of-package warning labels, marketing restrictions, school food environment regulations, or taxes could benefit from aligning these policies around a single, robust nutrient profiling model that identifies the least healthy foods and beverages.

Implementing mutually reinforcing policies such as these that discourage purchase and consumption of unhealthy while also raising revenue that can fund health-promoting interventions has great potential to prevent and reduce obesity and other noncommunicable diseases.

---

Read the full article in PLOS ONE.

AUTHORS:

The latest evaluation of Chile’s Law of Food Labeling and Advertising finds that under Phase 1 of the law’s implementation, Chileans purchased significantly fewer calories, sugar, saturated fat, and sodium than would have been expected had the law and its regulations not gone into effect.

The study, published in the August issue of The Lancet Planetary Health, combined data on household food shopping from 2015–2017 (during Phase 1 of the law) with nutrition facts data for all the products purchased to examine changes in what groceries Chileans bought before/after the law took effect. 

Overall, purchased calories, sugar, saturated fat, and sodium declined significantly. Among “high-in” purchases (junk foods and sugary drinks that did not meet Phase 1 nutrition criteria), households bought 24% less calories, 27% less sugar, 16% less saturated fat, and 37% less sodium compared to what they were expected to buy, had the law not come into effect.

This evaluation builds on and confirms findings from the Global Food Research Program’s previous evaluation of changes in beverage purchases during Phase 1. In that study, authors observed a 24% drop in the volume of sugary drinks purchased and a 28% decline in calories purchased from sugary drinks, compared to expected purchases had the law not taken effect.

These results highlight the potential for multi-component policies to significantly impact people’s shopping and consumption habits. The GFRP team will continue working with colleagues in Chile and Mexico to evaluate changes following implementation of Phases 2 and 3 of the law, which have increasingly strict nutrition standards.

Read more about this research and its implications, according to the study authors.

---

Funding for this study was provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the International Development Research Center, and the Carolina Population Center (P2C HD050924).