The Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition of the Food and Drug Administration have released two new products to help consumers use the Nutrition Facts label. In the true spirit of '1P Marketing' it's all about communications; forget about changing the product (the label) to make it easier to understand and use.
From the press release: The tools are Make Your Calories Count, a Web-based learning program, and a new Nutrition Facts Label brochure.
Consumers can use the Nutrition Facts label to take control of their caloric intake and weight and to make healthy food choices, if they know how. This program will show consumers how, in part, by explaining what serving sizes, percentages, and daily values mean and how to use them.
“This learning program provides a quick and simple way to educate consumers on how to use the nutrition facts label,” said Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, Acting FDA Commissioner. “By making it easier for consumers to understand the Nutrition Facts label, the FDA is helping them make quick and informed food choices that contribute to lifelong healthy eating habits.”
Make Your Calories Count is available here and is described as ...a self-extracting, compressed (ZIP) file divided into multiple parts. When downloaded and unzipped, it creates an HWM sub-folder and opens an index page in your web browser.
The brochure, that I did check, comes out at a 5th grade reading level.
Guess the price of creating a point-of-choice tool for informing healthier choices exceeds that of producing and distributing even more information to explain the arcane that go back over a decade.
What is a HWM sub-folder anyway? Google, Yahoo! Ask and MSN weren't much help. I just finished spending 2 days with students in the Health Communications program at Emerson College and sometimes it's painful to see how little of what we know about social marketing and health communications gets applied.
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