Twenty years ago, no one scrutinized cereal boxes to compare calories in competing brands. They couldn't—prior to the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) of 1990, that info wasn't on most packages. And forget about finding calories on restaurant menus.
Yet the country's obesity rate back then was about 14 percent lower than it is now. Labels, it seems, may be doing more harm than good. That's why the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a nonprofit health advisory, is taking a fresh look at labeling policies in an effort to make the facts clearer and harder to ignore. Here's how not to be duped.
Food Fakers
One of the biggest problems with labels is that while the NLEA specified what nutrition data should be shown, and even the typeface and size it had to be printed in, the legislation didn't dictate where it should be placed. Consequently, most manufacturers will bury a product's fact panel and ingredients list on the back or side of the package, while filling the front with such eye-catching words as sensible, smart, and healthy—claims that sound good and sell well but are often misleading.
Source: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/nutrition/understanding-food-labels
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