At least for a decade now, doctors in India have been warning against the consumption of chocolates, cookies, chips and other packaged foods. Their concerns have fallen on deaf ears for ages, but it is time for many in the country to seriously consider this advice now. A recent survey has found that India’s packaged food is among the unhealthiest of the countries surveyed in the world.
The study published in the medical journal ‘Obesity Reviews’ analysed more than 0.4 million food and drink products from 12 countries including the UK, US, Australia, Chile, China, India, New Zealand and others. These products were rated based on the Australian Health Star Rating System. The system assesses the healthiness of food products on a scale from 0.5 to 5, where 0.5 is the least healthy.
The assessment is done by comparing the good ingredients and components of the products (fibre, protein, fruits, legumes etc.) to the bad ones (saturated fats, calorie intake, total sugar and sodium). In this study, India ranked the lowest with a 2.27 rating. It was followed by China at 2.43 and Chile at 2.44. Amongst the high-ranking countries, the UK was at the top with 2.83 and closely followed by the US with 2.82 and Australia with 2.81.
These findings are bad news for Indians considering the amount of packaged food that they consume. According to a report done in 2017, 93% of children eat packaged food and 68% consume packed beverages more than once a week. Moreover, in 2016, the National Family Health Survey in India had pointed out that obesity in the country had doubled in a decade. Against this backdrop, the current study highlights that the high levels of sugar, saturated fats and calories in some of India’s favourite snacks are a cause of concern.
But what has earned India such low rating? Sonal Dhingra, the Deputy Programme Manager of Food Safety and Toxins at the Centre for Science and Education answers that a lack of regulation is the main cause. “The current law does not require a mandatory declaration of critical nutrients of concern like salt, saturated fats, cholesterol and added sugar. So, the same food company that declares these nutrients of concern in countries like the US and UK are selective in declaration here. Besides, it is not just about the content but also about the quantity consumed. Indian regulations in their current form, unlike the US and UK, do not mandatorily require the declaration of serving size and per serve contribution to recommended dietary allowance (RDA). If a consumer is aware of how much of the daily limit of fat, salt or sugar he/she will exhaust by consuming a particular quantity, they can consume thoughtfully,” she says.
Dhingra further adds that the nutritional quality of packaged foods can be improved if the food companies reformulate their products i.e. manufacture the same foods with less fat, sugar, and salt. Front-of-pack warning labels can potentially encourage reformulation of these products, but the food industry is averse to the idea of having a warning label on the foods. Having this label would make it easier for a consumer to understand the contents of the packaged food and highlight excess fat, sugar, and salt.
But this improved consumer understanding of unhealthy packaged food is detrimental to the sales of these companies.
Mridul Patwardhan, a nutritionist who specialises in food as preventive medicine and sports nutrition too has similar things to say. “Manufacturers of these products want to maintain their profit margin yet keep their prices low for maximising their sales. In this bid, they tend to use a lower quality of the ingredients. Multiple videos have been put up on social media which have shown how unhealthy packaged food is. However, no action has been taken up in response to that. Such things are not taken lightly in developed countries and if a company is sued, it becomes difficult for them to carry on with their business,” she says.
Patwardhan further added that consumers too need to be aware and read the labels carefully. “I had once bought two variations of pasta, one which claimed to be whole wheat pasta on the front label and the other one was white pasta. However, when I compared the ingredients of the two, they were the same. So, what made the pasta look brown? One needs to think about it,” she says.
The health burden of packaged food
Considering that packaged food is energy dense, with a high content of fat, sugar, and/or salt, it contributes to long-run health risks. “In India, the disease patterns have experienced complete transition since the 1990s. About two-thirds of Indians now die because of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). These include cardiovascular diseases, cancers and diabetes, many of which are associated with unhealthy diets. Overweight/obesity levels among the 15-49-year-old population have doubled in a decade and the threat of hypertension is looming large,” says Dhingra.
On the positive side, she says that the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) released a draft Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations 2019 last month, which also includes ‘front-of-pack’ labelling along with red-coloured coding to help identify foods that are high in calories, saturated fats, trans fats, added sugar and sodium. The draft, if adopted, will require packaged foods to have this label which can encourage the food industry to improve the nutritious value of packaged food.
“It is important that this draft is notified soon to enforce the required labelling laws. Apart from the labelling regulations, the consumption of high fat, sugar, salt (HFSS) foods also needs to be curtailed by having in place a robust regulatory framework for restricting its advertisements, targeted at children and youngsters. This should be made applicable to ads on television (during prime-time), in outside spaces like near parks, schools, stadiums and other places where children gather, and digital media platforms that children access the most. The availability of packaged food in school canteens needs to be restricted as well,” says Dhingra.
