An evaluation of Chile ’s Law of Food Labeling and Advertising on sugar-sweetened beverage purchases from 2015 to 2017: A before-and-after study

The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of this package of policies on household beverage purchases. Method and findingsIn this observational study, monthly longitudinal data on packaged beverage purchases were collected from urban-dwelling households (n = 2,383) participating in the Kantar WordPanel Chile Survey from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2017. Beverage purchases were linked to nutritional information at the product level, reviewed by a team of nutritionists, and categorized as “high-in” or “not high-in” according to whether they contained high levels of nutrients of concern (i.e., sugars, sodium, saturated fat, or energy) according to Chilean nutrient thresholds and were thus subject to the law’s warning label, marketing restriction, and school sales ban policie s. The majority of high-in beverages were categorized as such because of high sugar content. We used fixed-effects models to compare the observed volume as well as calorie and sugar content of postregulation beverage purchases to a counterfactual based on preregulation trends, overall and by househo ld-head educational attainment. Of households included in the study, 37% of household heads had low education (less than high school), 40% had medium education (graduated high school), and 23% had high education (graduated college), with the sample becoming more educated over the study period. Compa red to the counterfactual, the volume of high-in beverage purchases decreased 22.8 mL/ca...
Source: PLoS Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Source Type: research