A Nurse Practitioner's View

The NY Times reports that the F.D.A. is cracking down on food manufacturer's health claims on their package labels. I have somewhat mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, if a purported health claim is enough to convince someone to make wiser eating habits, then that has to be a benefit (albeit to the financial advantage of the manufacturer). However, as we strive to incorporate scientific evidence into these health claims, they need to be accurate and actually based on good data. A lot of supplements and vitamins now shy away from clear health claims for fear of the same F.D.A.-type crackdown (though is simply adding the word, " may " to the claim enough? As in "Vitamin C may contribute to increased immunity," etc.) It seems as if the F.D.A. is willing to work with the manufacturers to convey accurate and scientific information that should satisfy the manufacturers while protecting and correctly informing consumers and this should be lauded.

Today, Michelle Obama launched the Let's Move ! campaign to tackle childhood obesity. The goal of the program is: "to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation." We are right there with you to tackle this challenge! Speaking of obesity..... William Neuman of the New York Times takes on our antiquated and hard to interpret food labels in terms of serving sizes. Its a great video and shows what a serving size should be according to the label. Now, the FDA is considering changing the standard serving sizes and encouraging manufacturers to list calorie counts on the front of packages. It is truly mind boggling to try and interpret portion sizes and nutrition information on today's foods. Most of us under-estimate the amount of food we eat. Healthy living begins with our diet and if we cannot adequately determine the nutritional value of what we are consuming, it becomes impossible. This also ties into the recent study that showed calorie counts are f...