Abstract
The massive use of web marketing makes the monitoring of nutrition and health claims used in advertising campaigns much more difficult. The present study aimed at reviewing the website content for bottled waters produced in Italy to assess (i) if nutrition and health claims are reported, (ii) what types of nutrition and health claims are reported most frequently, and (iii) if the nutrition and health claims could be considered appropriate according to the current regulation in the field. A review of the website content of the 253 bottled waters produced in Italy and reported in the annual report of Bevitalia 2016–2017 was conducted. For each brand, indications related to the preventive, curative or therapeutic properties of the water reported were examined. Bottled waters that included potentially misleading information apparently not consistent with the European Directive on the exploitation and marketing of natural mineral waters were identified. Forty bottled waters with uncertain website content were identified. The information reported in the websites referred most often to beneficial effects for urinary tract and cardiovascular systems. Present results highlight, using the bottled water case study, that website content sometimes happens to deliver misleading information to consumers, also thanks to uncertain regulation in this sensitive field.
Highlights
Consumption and demand for bottled water have grown exponentially in the last few years.In 2016, the U.S market recorded an increase of nearly 9% in total bottled water volume, which grew from 44.6 billion liters in 2015 to 47.6 billion liters in 2016 [1]
Such “uncertain” beneficial effects referred most often to the urinary tract and cardiovascular system, indicating, in terms of plausibility, an association among the chemical characteristics of drinking water and some biological functions, especially the cardiovascular, digestive, and urinary ones. Evidence in this field is, still debated and should be taken with caution [25]. This is the reason behind the introduction of strict criteria to which industry should conform, and the consequent small set of indications which have been authorized for bottled waters [12]
The use of misleading health and nutrition claims on websites is an emerging public health issue that requires the attention of legislative authorities
Summary
Consumption and demand for bottled water have grown exponentially in the last few years.In 2016, the U.S market recorded an increase of nearly 9% in total bottled water volume, which grew from 44.6 billion liters in 2015 to 47.6 billion liters in 2016 [1]. Among European countries, Italy has the highest number of natural mineral waters, with more than 250 different brands, and an estimated per capita yearly consumption of 188.5 liters [3,4] Reasons for this growing trend are still uncertain. Each year, bottled water companies spend billions of dollars to create appealing advertisements for different communication channels such as print, television, and web advertising [5]. Among such “appealing advertisings” there are nutrition and health claims which have become new marketing tools [7]
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