...To improve diets and address non-communicable diseases
Nutrition science and technology are rapidly evolving, and so is related public health legislation. Over the years we have been overburdened by obesity and other nutrition-related non-communicable diseases. Thus, Ghana is experiencing multiple-burden of malnutrition.
The malnutrition situation is largely being driven by inadequate access to nutritious, safe, and healthy foods, as well as exposure to unhealthy food environments. As part of a complex food system, policy efforts to improve food environments need to be tackled at multiple levels, engaging multiple actors across diverse sectors that account for the co-existence of multiple forms of malnutrition.
In response to this, the Ministry of Health (MOH) convened a consultative meeting on Thursday, the 30th of September, 2021, to provide stakeholders an opportunity to contribute to the development of food policy bundles for healthier diets. Stakeholders included academics, Government actors, United Nation agencies and civil society organizations.
One of the food environment policy bundles looked at food labelling. Food labelling policies enable consumers to make informed choices regarding the healthiness of processed/pre-packaged foods. These include mandatory front-of pack labelling, indicating healthiness of food products. Overwhelming evidence points to the efficacy of front-of-package nutrition labelling in nudging consumers’ towards healthier choices.
Providing updates from the DFC/Tacled Projects that benchmarked Ghana’s policies for creating healthy food environments at the meeting, the presenter, Professor Michelle Holdsworth, mentioned gaps in food labelling policy implementation.
According to her, the study found that although listing of ingredients or nutrient declarations on food packages was second best in implementation in relation to international practice, regulatory systems for health and nutrition claims was low. The study further identified Government support for nutrition advocates for nutrition labelling as a very important and feasible policy priority to promote healthier food environments while mandatory front-of-pack labelling was seen as very important but less feasible.
During the discussion, stakeholders identified laboratory capacity and legislature as a gap to proper food labelling. According to a stakeholder at the meeting, there is no law mandating labelling and also the capacity of laboratories to analyse food content such as the trans-fat component is not available in-country. He added that, companies have to travel as far as South Africa to have that analysis done.
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It was reiterated by another stakeholder that, in Ghana, labelling is not mandatory but if one attempts to label his/her product, the Codex Alimentarius format must be followed. The Codex Alimentarius is a collection of internationally adopted food standards. Although a priority, labelling according to CODEX comes at a cost of which most of our industries that operate as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) might not be able to afford.
Some of the recommendations from stakeholders to address food labelling gaps impressed the Food and Drug Authority (FDA) to make it mandatory to properly label processed foods indicating the added sugars, fats, etc. They further called out legislators present to become agents who will push the policy in parliament. In terms of practice, coordination, leadership and having a roadmap were recommended.
Meanwhile, some other countries have adopted front-of-pack labelling systems, such as star systems to rank the healthfulness of products (Australia and New Zealand), or traffic lights (Sri Lanka) or nutrient warning labels (Chile) to identify products that are high in calories, sodium, sugar, or saturated fat.
These labels are associated with healthier food and beverage purchases and have also led food companies to reformulate their products to avoid warnings or improve ratings. For example, a study conducted in Chile, reported a 15% reduction in products that were high in sugar following implementation of mandatory front-of-pack nutrient warning labels. It is time for Ghana to take advantage of science-based food labelling as an important tool for protecting consumers and promoting healthy diets.
Ending the meeting, Amos Laar, an Associate Professor of Public Health, at the School of Public Health, University of Ghana, and Principal Investigator of the MEALS4NCDs Project, stated on behalf of the Academia that, “We will do our best to provide what we are capable of providing; the evidence that is needed to push this forward and ensure that it becomes reality, not only when the policy or laws have been passed, but we will continue to generate evidence with respect to monitoring the implementation of same such that in the end our food environment would be improved, our health will be improved and then Ghana will be the beneficiary”.
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