Stop Look - Eat

To control the modern epidemics of obesity, type 2 diabetes and other preventable diseases, Australia's dietary guidelines recommend moderation in the four nutritional areas of fat, saturated fat, added sugar and salt.

But these guidelines have little impact on the food shopping choices of Australians, says Dr Trevor Beard, Honorary Research Fellow at the Menzies Research Institute in Tasmania, and his colleagues, in a letter in the latest edition of the Medical Journal of Australia.

"Traffic-light food labels pick out each of those four nutrients in green, amber or red," says Dr Beard, whose special interest is salt.

"Red is the least healthy, green is the healthiest, and moderation is indicated by an amber colour.

"Shoppers can see at a glance a food's profile of compliance with the dietary guidelines for each of the four areas.

"They need to be mandatory, and they need to replace industry-sponsored schemes, which we believe are not clear enough to alter a customer's buying patterns."

He says the traffic-light labels would open consumers' eyes to the content of foods they previously thought were 'healthy' options.

"Many shoppers would be surprised to find several of Australia's best-selling breakfast cereals carrying two red lights for added sugar and salt," Dr Beard says.

Dr Beard suggests that energy expressed as kilojoules, and trans fats, also should receive traffic-light labelling.

"Traffic-light labels would enable parents to protect their families from obesity by shopping almost exclusively for foods with green and amber traffic-lights for fat," he says.

"Food choices to control obesity involve a radical change in shopping behaviour, and traffic-light labels are expressly designed help people identify the healthiest options."

The Medical Journal of Australia is a publication of the Australian Medical Association.

The original letter to the editor can be viewed at www.mja.com.au