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Why portion and serving sizes should be left for the FSA to decide

Like much of the developed world, the UK has an obesity problem. 60% of the population is overweight or obese from eating too much and exercising too little.

Reducing portion sizes a proven intervention that changes health behaviour and helps to reduce obesity

There have been numerous studies since the early 1990s that show reducing portion sizes of the food & drink we consume would help reverse the obesity epidemic. BBC health editor, James Gallagher, reported in 2015 [link] the findings of research based on 6,711 people that took part in a wide range of clinical trials. Professor Gareth Hollands (among others) found that eliminating "large portions could cut up to 279 calories a day out of people's diets" [link]....equivalent to an extra kg of fat to contend with every month.
Research in the British Medical Journal states that reducing portion sizes becomes easier when there is
  1. availability of smaller pack sizes of popular food & drink and
  2. clear & unconfusing nutritional info available on pack (or at the point of purchase/consumption). [link]

Pack size reductions key to encouraging smaller portion consumption

A portion is how much you choose to eat or drink at one time, whether in a restaurant, from a pack/bottle consumed on the go, or at dinner at home. Not many folks actually know what constitutes a "portion" which is why for example getting folks to eat "5 (portions of fruit & veg) a day" has been hard.
Even worse, most consumers rely on their sight to determine portion size which can underestimate consumption by as much as 300 calories each day [link]. Manufacturers have been increasing portion sizes across virtually every category for decades, further fueling the obesity epidemic.
Encouraging portion control starts with smaller pack sizes. Pack size reductions have been happening since the early 2000s, mostly by stealth and initially in response to raw material & packaging cost increases.
It has happened across a limited number of everyday food categories with consumers largely shrugging their shoulders at having to pay more for less.
Drink behemoths Coca-Colaand Pepsi responded late to the call for pack size reductions. Smaller pack sizes are now in (very limited) distribution. Still, the standard carbonated soft drink single-serve pack sold in lunchtime meal deals and off convenience store shelves actually increased in the past decades i.e. from a 330ml (12oz in NA) can to a 500ml (20oz in NA) PET.

Making serving sizes more relevant & easier to follow

The serving size displayed on packs is an amount of food or drink calculated by the manufacturer. Sometimes it is obvious e.g. 1 slice of bread. This serving size is used to calculate nutritional info displayed on a label. Serving size info is also shown based on a 100g / 100ml amount of that food or drink.
Many food & drink that come as a single portion actually contain multiple servings. That makes it harder for consumers to judge whether or not they have consumed 1 serving or more. For example, when Coke increased their standard single serve pack size from a 330ml can to a 500ml PET, they decreased the serving size from 330ml to 250ml. FDA guidelines that they helped to write would have let them do it "...serving sizes that fall half-way between two serving sizes, manufacturers shall round upto the next incremental size.." However, since those guidelines were based on 1990s research into what a typical person eats or drinks at one time and, given that in the UK there is no standardised serving sizes published for food or drinks, serving sizes printed on food & drink packs are largely meaningless.

In 2007, industry kicked traffic lights into the long grass.....

Clear and unconfusing front-of-pack nutritional info on food and drink has historically been a tough nut to crack. For decades, the marketing departments at food & drink companies controlled nutritional labelling. In 2006, with obesity levels rising in the UK, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) looked at several ideas for nutritional labelling including a traffic-light system - a small sticker that used a colour code to denote the percentage of a person's RDA contained in each product (red for high, amber for medium and green for low). Consumer research was positive to traffic lights but many of the major food & drink companies resisted and it was kicked into the long grass. The Department of Health took over responsibility for nutritional labelling in 2010 but, to this day, traffic light labelling remains a voluntary scheme in the UK.

Healthier drinks: All change. No change.

I spotted a NEW "no added sugar" fruit-infused soft drink on a store shelf this week produced by a company I have been impressed with regarding some of their recent NPD and reformulation commitments. Its 5g sugar front-of-pack nutritional declaration was very encouraging until I spotted in fine print that this info was for 1/2 of the bottle's contents. I sent a tweet to the manufacturer asking them to clarify the serving size. I received this reply the following day:
However, info appearing on their website (which was also used in their launch press release issued in March to retailer & consumer press) refers to it as a "500ml serving":
Bottles this size are long known to be "immediate consumption" single-serve packs because a drink this size is usually consumed within a short space of time. We know also that the vast majority of consumers cannot (or will not) read fine print so will not realise they have consumed in fact 2 1/2 teaspoons (or 40% of the WHO's daily recommended sugar allowance). Why not declare on pack once and for all the total healthier drink's total nutritional content?

"Portion distorters" join up to maintain the status quo

Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Mars, Unilever, Mondelez (Kraft) and Nestle recently made a joint announcement that they would - after all these years - accept to adopt the UK traffic light labelling system (and on their European-wide portfolios).......but only on the condition that they would continue to determine portion / serving sizes. A representative for the consortium stated plainly the rules for their engagement:
".... colours [on the traffic lights] might differ a bit as the assessment of the colour will be based on the portion size and not on an assessment on a per 100g/ml basis"[ link].
At first pass, this might seem reasonable as few folks know what 100 grams / 100 mls of food or drink really means. However, serving sizes and portion sizes have been set largely in the favour of the industry e.g. this cereal label (who knows that 30g of cereal works out to 4-5 tablespoons of dry cereal?).
We also know consumers and many health industry folks do not trust the industry. Indeed, the British Heart Foundation in 2013 branded food & drink manufacturers' antics as nothing more than portion distortion [link].

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? " Who will guard the guards?" 

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a Latin phrase that literally translates as " Who will guard the guards themselves?". [Trekkie fans will know it as "Who watches the watchmen".]
There has been positive steps taken by the industry around reformulation and pack size reductions of late but should we trust manufacturers to be left to define what is a portion or serving (size) and, when it suits, re-define it? I say no.
So then who? If we truly want to offer consumers "food we can trust", the FSA should have the ultimate sign-off on serving size / portion size. The industry needs to stop obfuscating the legislative and regulatory steps needed to make the existing traffic light system mandatory. They need to stop trying to invent a new system which will take even more years to agree. They need to spend the time and money instead on working with the FSA and others to create relevant and meaningful portion / serving sizeswhich may, finally, help to nudge folks to making better food & drink choices and impact the obesity epidemic in a more positive way.

Love the post? Hate the post? Have other ideas? Please leave a comment below. If you would like to discuss this or a related topic, please contact me viawww.id2l.com or connect with me here on Linkedin. We can also connect via Twitter @sophia_isa. I am based in London, UK, but globally mobile.
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