Abstract
The prevalence of obesity among Chilean adults and children is one of the highest worldwide. To fight the constant increase of non-communicable diseases and the growing sales of sugar-sweetened beverages, the Chilean government recently enacted a new Law of Food Labeling and Advertising imposing the application of front-of-package warning labels in foodstuffs whose composition exceeds limits for critical nutrients including sugar. Accordingly, food companies have been reformulating their products, incorporating non-caloric sweeteners (NCSs) in partial or total replacement of sucrose. The number of NCS-containing foods and beverages, therefore, has been increasing in the last years. This study aims to identify the NCS-containing products from different food/beverage categories currently available on the Chilean market. Nineteen supermarkets and 13 food web pages were visited by trained dietitians to carry out a systematic search of ingredient information from the different food categories. Overall, 1,489 products were analyzed, of which 815 (55.5%) contained at least one NCS, being this proportion particularly high, compared to other countries. 67.1% of the dairy products, 31.5% of the cereal products, 49% of the processed fruits, 74.3% of the non-alcoholic beverages, and 46.2% of sweets and other desserts contained NCS. Considering the food categories more specifically oriented to children, NCSs were present in 98.8% of powder juices, 98.3% of the flavored milks, 91.2% of jellies, and 79% of the dairy desserts. Sucralose and steviol glycosides were the most widely used NCSs, these sweeteners being present, alone or mixed with other, in 73.5 and 39.7% of the NCS-containing products, respectively, while the use of saccharin and cyclamate was low. In addition, 80 tabletop NCSs were available in the local market, 91.2% of them being sucralose and steviol glycosides (alone or combined). The high number of food products containing steviol glycosides makes very plausible that the daily consumption of this NCS in the pediatric populations could exceed its acceptable daily intake (ADI). The fact that there are no NCS-free foods alternatives for certain food categories, especially for children, is worrying.
Highlights
Chile ranks second in the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) list of countries with higher obesity rates, with a prevalence of 13.1% in 6–7 years school children and 30.5 and 38.8% in adult men and women, respectively [1, 2]
With the aim to tackle the constant increase in obesity and non-communicable diseases and fight the growing sales of sugar-sweetened beverages and junk foods, the Chilean government enacted a new Law of Food Labeling and Advertising (Law 20.606) in 2012, which was implemented in June 2016 [8, 9]
Our results show that a high proportion of the foods and beverage products available in the different supermarket chains of Santiago contains non-caloric sweeteners (NCSs), compared with other countries
Summary
Chile ranks second in the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) list of countries with higher obesity rates, with a prevalence of 13.1% in 6–7 years school children and 30.5 and 38.8% in adult men and women (from 20 to 49 years), respectively [1, 2]. The aim of the law was to restrict the marketing, advertising and sale of non-healthy foodstuffs focused to children and, on the other hand, to specify limits for the content of critical nutrients (sodium, sugars, and/or saturated fats) and total energy in processed, liquid and solid, food products. Those exceeding the limits for one or more critical nutrient must exhibit a front-of-package warning label consisting of a black hexagon stating in white letters “High in . Since the initial application of the Law in 2016, these limits have been gradually lowered, first in 2017, and in 2018 [10, 11]
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