"Added Sugars" labeling is once again being considered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in its proposed updates to the Nutrition Facts Panels (NFP). The current NFP displayed on all packaged food products originated in 1993 and at that time FDA addressed the issue of "Added Sugars" on the labeling stating,
"The agency is not persuaded that there is a need for mandatory disclosure of added sugars in place of, or in addition to, total sugars. There is no scientific evidence that the body makes any physiological distinction between added sugar molecules and those naturally occurring in a food."
Fast forward to 2014 to the FDA’s new proposal which would continue to require the declaration of the grams of "Sugars" (natural occurring and added) on the NFP but would also require the declaration of the grams of "Added Sugars" in an indented format under "Sugars." Notably, this proposed change was put forth without data on consumer understanding of the new format. Shedding light on this is a new study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics which concluded that the addition of an "Added Sugars" designation on the NFP actually may confuse and mislead consumers about how much "Sugars" is actually in a product.
The most significant finding in the study was that routine label readers and nonreaders (49.8%-58.4%) both mistakenly thought the grams of "Added Sugars" on the label were in addition to the grams of "Sugars." This means that participants thought they should add together the grams in both categories "Sugars" and "Added Sugars," significantly inflating the amount of perceived "Sugars" in a product. In fact, nearly six in 10 (59.8%) believed that there was a difference in the total sugars content among the three NFP versions, despite the fact that all three were nutritionally identical.
The study also found that consumer confusion over "Added Sugars" information may impact purchasing behavior.
"NFP changes that are intended to clarify product nutrition facts may have the unintended consequence of causing misinterpretations of the label information. In this analysis, rather than improving consumer understanding about the amount of total sugars in a product, NFPs with ‘Added Sugars’ declarations were misleading and the resulting misperception influenced purchase intent," the study’s authors conclude.
Source: www.sugar.org