July 28,2024
Renu Jain, a Bengalurubased software professional and mother of two teenagers, tries to check every box to keep her children healthy. However, last year, when she came across a viral video by Revant Himatsingka—known as “foodpharmer” on social media—warning about high sugar content in Bournvita, she was shaken. “I have been giving Bournvita to my children for years. Not just that, my mother also made me have it every day when I was little,” says Jain. “Wasn’t it supposed to be a health drink—to help children grow taller, run faster?” she asks.
Jain is not the only one who makes kids gulp down “health drinks”. Some popular health drink brands are part of the monthly grocery lists of many families. Health experts say many of these brands have been available in India since the 1950s and have established themselves in the minds of consumers as “health drinks”.
In India, the challenge of feeding a large, geographically dispersed population, millions of whom are poor, malnourished and unaware of labelling on packs, results in lax public health policies. Even if the policy is strong enough, sometimes the problem lies with its implementation, say civil society activists.
“Health drink” labels often mislead consumers as the advertiser misrepresents the nutritional content of the food item, says Dr Arun Gupta, paediatrician and convener of Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest (NAPi), a think tank.
In April last year, it was a child rights body, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, that asked Mondelez International India, which makes Bournvita, to withdraw all “misleading” advertisements, packaging and labels. It took almost a year for India’s food regulator, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), to order ecommerce players to not use the term “health drink for malt-based drinks” as the food laws of the country do not define the term. From high sugar in “health drinks” to added sugar in baby food to contaminated spices, Indians have had much to worry about what they eat and drink (See box “Eating Away”). FSSAI has to knuckle down to ensure that the labelling is clear, advertisements don’t mislead and the grub does not harm the people. FSSAI did not respond to ET’s emailed queries till press time.
A recent report by NAPi, which analysed 50 advertisements of packaged food items across media platforms, found that all of them were concealing information about critical “nutrients of concern” such as sugar, salt and fat. The report also found that 23 out of 50 advertisements used celebrities— film and television stars or popular sports persons—to market the products. The advertisements used attractive visuals and made manipulative claims to position themselves as the best products, says the report. It also said fruits, grains and positive nutrients were used to project a deceptive image of health food.
The impact of such advertisements on public health is concerning, especially with the rising rates of obesity, diabetes and other diet-related illnesses in India. Even the recent Economic Survey has flagged unhealthy food, social media, screen time and sedentary habits as a “lethal mix that can undermine public health and productivity and diminish India’s economic potential”.
Misleading ads are a huge concern, but do they face consequences? In May 2023, the Advertisement Monitoring Committee of FSSAI reported 32 cases of misleading ads, which were found to be in contravention of the Food Safety and Standards (Adver tisements & Claims) Regulations, 2018. However, an RTI query filed this year has revealed that no action has been taken against these companies even after one year of being found guilty.
“There is weakness in the process in identifying what a misleading advertisement is because there is no objective definition in the FSS Act 2006 (which governs India’s food laws). Therefore, it takes years and there have been no penalties,” says Gupta. He adds that the Consumer Protection Act 2019 defines “misleading advertisement” as a product or a service that deliberately conceals important information; however, it has not been applied to food items. “While the FSS Act prohibits misleading advertisements, its regulations do not have the provision to define misleading advertisements based on nutrients of concern,” he says.
The Global Food Security Index 2022, managed and published by The Economist, ranked India 67th, on the quality and safety of food, out of 113 countries.
Is that a good score for the world’s most populous nation, aspiring to be Viksit Bharat by 2047?
India is already known to be the diabetes capital of the world. According to a recent report in The Lancet, the country could be facing an obesity epidemic. Non-communicable diseases account for 60% of deaths in India, says a health ministry report. Stepping up its act, India’s food regulator, in the past few months, has come out with several initiatives. It has ordered all food companies to remove any claim of “100% fruit juices” from the labels and advertisements of reconstituted fruit juices. Such claims are “misleading”, particularly when the major ingredient is water and the primary ingredient, fruit juice, is reconstituted using water and fruit concentrates or pulp, the food regulator said.
On July 6, FSSAI approved another important proposal to display nutritional information regarding sugar, salt and saturated fat in bold letters and in bigger font size on labels of packaged food items. The draft notification for the amendment would now be put in the public domain for suggestions and objections. “Along with empowering consumers to make healthier choices, the amendment would also contribute towards efforts to combat the rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and promote public health and well-being,” FSSAI said. H owever, George Cheriyan, who was a member of FSSAI’s expert group on front-ofthe-pack labelling (FoPL), calls it a “sabotage”. “Display of nutritional information in bold letters is just a way to sabotage a more effective and stricter front of the pack labelling, which has proven to reduce consumption of unhealthy foods in several countries,” says Cheriyan. “The labelling already exists. Putting it in bold serves no purpose.”
An expert committee set up by the FSSAI in 2013 was the first to propose a system to strengthen the existing labelling regulations. In 2014, it had recommended FoPL. An entire decade has gone by, but there is no FoPL. Since many people can’t read and only a small proportion understands English, civil society groups and health experts wanted front of the packs to have pictorial warning labels, alerting consumers about the levels of salt, sugar and fat in it, says Cheriyan.
“Instead, we have the new nutrition labelling proposal, which is an eyewash,” says Madhu Sudan Sharma, senior programme officer, Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS International). “Why not use something like smilies on the front of the pack?” asks Cheriyan. Testing food items is another big challenge in India, says Sharma. Take trans fats. In 2018, the World Health Organisation (WHO) called for the elimination of industrially produced trans fat from food supply by 2023. Following that, FSSAI notified a regulation to limit trans fat to 2% by January 2022. “After that several packaged food items make the claim that they are free of trans fat. However, there are hardly any testing facilities where we can go to get these claims verified,” says Sharma.
FSSAI was created in 2006 for laying down science-based standards for articles of food and to regulate their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import to ensure safe and wholesome fare for human consumption. It was created following longdrawn demands from civil society groups and industry for food laws and a business-friendly regulator, respectively. Before that was the inspector raj, says Sharma.
Almost two decades later, food companies still have extensive power to market and trade unhealthy food products, says the NAPi report, adding that a few companies enjoy this freedom at the expense of people’s health as many are not aware of what they eat. “Industry loves to blame the consumer. But it should not be left only to individuals to improve their habits,” says Gupta. The food regulator should ensure that everyone who stirs some malt powder into her milk, pours a glass of juice or picks a biscuit from a pack knows what she is eating—and that the food doesn’t hurt her.
Source: Economic Times