"Traffic light" system helps spot healthy foods

By Anthony J. Brown, MD

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - As a food labeling system, a color-coded "traffic light" system is superior to percentage daily intake systems in helping consumers identify healthy foods, according to new study findings.

"We found that shoppers who used traffic light labeling were five times more likely to be able to identify healthier food products, compared to shoppers who saw the percentage daily intake system," lead research Bridget Kelly, from the Cancer Council, New South Wales, Australia, told Reuters Health.

"Shoppers were also able to compare different food products and make judgments about them at a glance with traffic light labeling," she added.

With percentage daily intake systems, the labeling is often just one color and shows what proportion of the government recommended adult daily intake the key nutrients in the product provide. With the traffic light system, by contrast, a color dot is used to rate the overall or specific nutrient content of a product.

The new study, to be presented Friday at the European Congress on Obesity in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, included 790 people who were randomly exposed to various foods with traffic light labeling or with percentage daily intake labeling. The participants were then asked to identify the healthier foods.

As noted, the traffic lights made for faster and more accurate identification.

Another benefit of traffic light labeling is that it helped socially disadvantaged people identify healthier foods, Kelly said.

"While all consumers could use the traffic light system to pick healthier foods, the percentage daily intake system could only be used by the most socially advantaged people," she noted.

Kelly acknowledges that while the findings show that traffic light labeling can help people identify healthier food, whether they will go on to buy them is a whole other matter. Further studies, therefore, are needed to answer this question, she said.