Running head: PROPER NUTRITION SAVES LIVES

Proper Nutrition Saves Lives

Adam W-J. Shock

First Colonial High School Legal Studies Academy

PROPER NUTRITION SAVES LIVES 2

Abstract

Nutrition labeling has been around for over a century, however, it isnt as complete as it

could be yet. The American nutrition label is the most descriptive in the world arguably,

however, it still lacks qualities such as GMO or genetically modified organism labeling along

with other information important to consumers. Luckily the law can help where individual

companies may not; the law can make it as mandatory as the nutrition label itself. This may

make more information available but many dont understand how to read a nutrition label or

cant understand the significance of the information on there.

PROPER NUTRITION SAVES LIVES 3

Proper Nutrition Saves Lives

Nutrition labeling has been enforced by law for over a century now and has come to

include many pieces of information so that the consumer can choose what they know for sure

they want, and to compare that certain food to others of the same kind and weigh the options

using the nutrition label which provides calorie counts and serving sizes, along with vitamins and

minerals. All of this was made possible by the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of

Chemistry centuries ago when they started to create policies for food that were as basic as

making sure they werent poisonous before they were able to be sold and making sure that the

food advertised is the same as the food inside. Throughout the years, it evolved into the Food and

Drug Administration and the Bureau of Animal Industry regulating foods that werent meat, and

food that was respectively.

This nutrition label that arose out of the legislation and the policies of the bureaus isnt all

inclusive though and could use a couple alterations to make certain pieces of information

available, or more prominent if they are already included, to help consumers make the healthiest

choice and fight obesity and ignorance of nutrition in America. Obesity is considered an

epidemic with over a third of the adult population being overweight due to the ease of unhealthy

and instant choices. This may be helped by remodeling the nutrition label or making it

mandatory for adults to learn how to use a label and how their decisions affect their level of

health and wellbeing.

Health care costs have resulted in billions of dollars due to complications of obesity such

as heart disease and type II diabetes. The dollar amount is only rising with the increasing number

of obese and overweight people in America who bypass the nutrition label and go for whatever
PROPER NUTRITION SAVES LIVES 4
looks the easiest and most convenient to make. Most of this is preventable with the proper

knowledge and access to foods. Other countries are having the exact same epidemic due to the

same reasons America is getting overweight and obese. Legislation can do a lot to help fight this

by passing laws to inform Americans and to make it mandatory for manufacturers to give all the

information they can to better the consumer.

History of Nutrition Labeling

The Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Chemistry

The Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Chemistry were the beginnings of food

testing and regulation. Before these institutions were around, many didnt and couldnt know

what was in the food they were eating. It all began when Lewis Caleb Beck was appointed to

chemically analyze agricultural products in 1848. In 1862 the Department of Agriculture took

over that job. It became the Food and Drug Administration in 1930. The Department of

Agriculture passed the first bill giving them regulatory power over food and drugs in 1906 with

the Pure Food and Drug Act which took over 25 years to complete. This law made it illegal to

sell adulterated or misbranded food and drugs. Harvey Washington Wiley, who was the Chief

Chemist of the Bureau of Chemistry, was the most influential in making this law and during the

first few years it was enacted, he headed its enforcement giving consumers basic protection that

many had never experienced. In fact, it was nicknamed the Wiley Act. Even though technology

has warped the way we grow food, the mission is of the FDA is the same as it has been, to

protect people from buying the food they didnt intend to which results in the prevention of food

poisoning and death (Swann, 2005).

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Original Pure Food and Drug Act

The pure food and drug act prohibited the transportation, adulteration of

misbranded, poisonous, or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors (Food and

Drug Act, 1906). It prohibited any of these actions within any state, territory, or the

District of Columbia. The act also said that the Bureau of Chemistry and the Department

of Agriculture or an organization under the name of the bureau has to examine all foods

and drugs for anything that does not comply with the entirety of the act.

The law was very intrusive for the time because the federal government had only

regulated prices and occupational safety, but now the government regulated the

manufacturing of the food that they were regulating the prices for. The two laws that

followed, the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 and the 1962 Kefauver- Harris

Amendments, helped to increase the FDAs power even further (Swann, 2005).

The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 was passed on the same day. It required

inspection of livestock before they were slaughtered and also an analysis of their

carcasses. Because of their shared connection to food, the laws split up the

administration of food regulation with one branch, The Bureau of Animal Industry,

inspecting and regulating meat and the Bureau of Chemistry which oversaw almost

every other provision set forth in the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 (Carpenter,

2004).

The USDA now oversees the production and anything dealing with safe

handling of meat and the FDA inspects all other foods. The Pure Food and Drug Act,

the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, (FDCA), and the 1962 Kefauver-Harris

Amendments are still in effect today.The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938
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mandates precisely how labels are allowed to be put on food and what has to be

contained on those labels to ensure safety, purity, and even the effectiveness of the

product, along with what is optional to place on a label to promote a product as unique.

This is an important task because it greatly reduces the chances of sickness and death

that can arise from consumers buying a product they didnt intend to. The FDCA of

1938 also gave the FDA the authority to control manufacturing processes used by

manufacturers. One other power the FDA possesses as a result of this act is the

screening of all medical products such as prescription and over-the-counter drugs,

medical devices, and all food additives. This means that any product falling under this

category must be approved before it is legally allowed to be sold to the public or used

on them (Ruger, 2004).

The Obesity Epidemic

About 36% of adults in America are overweight or obese. This number has been

rising over the last few decades. Since 1990, obesity rates have been rising, from about

15% of the adult population in 1990 to over one third today. This increase in obesity

means that there are many adults who either choose not to read a nutrition label, or

dont know how to and correlate that to their diets. Obesity is rising not only among

adults, but also children which has lead to an increase in the diagnoses of type II

diabetes, or adult onset diabetes, in that population of children. It has been shown that if

a child is obese or overweight, they are more likely to be obese as an adult than not

(Mendes, 2016).

In America, 69% of the population is either obese or overweight which means

that they are on a thin line between overweight or obese. To put this in perspective, to
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be considered healthy, one has to have a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 18.5- 24.9 which is

a wide range and if you apply that to a 5 11 man, they would weigh between roughly

136 and 172 pounds. However, overweight means a BMI between 25 and 29.9 which,

on that same 511 man, would be a weight of 179- 208 and obese is anything above a

BMI of 30 and 208 lbs for that same man. A BMI is simply calculated by dividing the

weight of a person by their height but this only works when using kilograms and

centimeters respectively. Using imperial units there is a calculation that can be done but

it requires multiplying the weight by 703, the height by itself, and then dividing the two

numbers (Bhurosy & Jeewon, 2014).

Of course, fat to muscle ratio is taken into account when determining obesity

because someone who has a large amount of muscles but little fat and weighs 300lbs

wouldnt be obese due to the fact that most of his mass is muscle. No one should

determine whether or not they are obese on their own if their using the BMI table

because it doesnt take into account fat and bone density and should therefore be left to

professionals or if that person has those specific measurements.

Obesity is on the rise, not only in America, but also all over the world. The

World Health Organization (WHO), reported over half a billion obese people in total

across the globe as of 2008. This number is only increasing with the rise in high

saturated fat foods and an increase in the concentration of high fructose corn syrup.

This rise in obesity has lead to an increase of $68.5 billion in health care from 1998-

2008 in the United States of America alone (Times, 2009).

If this trend is allowed to continue, by 2030 there may be a cost upwards of

$861- $957 billion related to obesity and health care alone. This would increase the
PROPER NUTRITION SAVES LIVES 8
deficit of our country and most likely of many other first world countries. This could

help be decreased if people were more aware of the impact food and exercise have on

their weight, along with the risks and costs of maintaining an unhealthy body weight.

Legislation could help move the educational process along by adding mandatory classes

on the subject of reading a nutrition label and the potential impact if they arent

nutritionally savvy, Even though these classes would cost millions if not billions of

dollars to create and keep going, the life expectancy rate and overall fitness of America

would be improved (De la Llana & Vargas, 2016).

Solutions for this kind of epidemic are much more difficult to employ without

infringing on the rights of the citizens beneath a government. If the government were to

pass more legislation in the name of the nations well being, it would cost billions of

dollars if that legislation included mandatory education. The education would stress

how important staying at a healthy weight is by running scenarios to show the students

how much of a negative effect obesity can have on not only their personal lives but

their entire community as well. After they learned of the effect, they would be taught

how to read a nutrition label that has been around since before they were born and how

each item influences either their energy level or weight gain along with many other

factors that influence their weight such as physical activity and even medication.

This would make many Americans unhappy because they have a right to eat

whatever they want and feel that they shouldnt be told how to eat or that theyre eating

wrong. It would result in possible rioting or protesting along with mass noncooperation

leading to either a large number of fines or jail sentences.

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Another more passive and less intrusive solution would be a combination of

many little changes that could lead to an impact on the obesity rates in America. These

include focusing on the youth by offering only fresh produce and a very limited amount

of expensive food with empty calories, making a clear statement of fat and sodium

content contained in foods such as chips and other traditional junk foods, and an

increase in funding, on the governments part, for recreational centers, bike paths, and

parks (Martinac, 2015).

Nutrition labeling compared to other countries. In the European Union, there are

nutrition labeling requirements; however, they are slightly different than those in the United

States and have only been required starting December 2016. Before December 2016, all

countries that belong to the European Union didnt have to include any nutrition information but

several did. Those who did usually included the information at varying rates. One product would

include fats or carbohydrates, whereas another wouldnt include either, but would include

sodium and possibly some vitamins.

Now, since the change, the requirements would be similar to the United States own

policy which includes stating all possible allergens, fat content, calories, and ingredients in the

product. There are, however, a few differences. One such difference is that the European Unions

labels include nutrition facts compared to 100 grams even when the food inside the package may

not contain 100 grams. This is for comparing two products side by side and seeing how much or

how little of an ingredient each has relative to one another. In the United States, before the

product is sold, a serving size is determined based on a 2,000 calorie diet, and then that serving

size is converted to cups, ounces, or bars, whichever the food is most commonly eaten as to put

its size in perspective along with how much you should eat.
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Another big difference is that the European Union only has to include salt content

whereas the United States requires the total sodium content be included. This is a problem for

consumers because they will only see how much additional salt was added aside from the

ingredients. If baking soda, which contains a lot of sodium, were included, the sodium content of

the baking soda would not be included in the overall salt content of the food. Sodium can

contribute to increased blood pressure and heart disease so those who cannot watch how much

they are ingesting are at an increased risk.

One last difference is the European Unions E numbers which are used in place of food

additives. These are in place of things such as food dyes and antibiotics that wouldnt otherwise

be in the foods. The general public doesnt know what E number matches what additive, and it

would take a lot of time to research every E number on a package, so hopefully, the United States

will stand by using the common name for all additives in our food (Entis, 2015).

A country that is close to the United States as far as labeling goes, is its neighbor,

Canada. Canada is extremely similar to the United States at this point in their lives. Canada may

be more strict than the United States when it comes to some aspects of its labeling though. One

such example is the inclusion of trans-fat being shown on the label. Both Canada and the United

States have per serving requirements and the policy for both countries relies upon this. In the

United States, if the trans- fat content per serving is less than .05 grams, it doesnt have to be

included on the nutrition label of the product being sold to the consumer. This changes in Canada

from .05 grams, to .02 grams per serving which makes it harder for manufacturers to take

advantage of this loophole. This is very important due to how unhealthy trans- fat is and how

even .05 grams per serving can impact someones life over years or decades of consumption.
PROPER NUTRITION SAVES LIVES 11
Another difference between the United States and Canada is in how they address

additives, but more specifically, food coloring. The United States goes into more detail on this

requirement by requiring the exact name of the color such as red 1 or yellow 40. However,

Canada only includes one nonspecific word for every color additive used which is colour. This

creates a problem for their consumers because these colors create certain reactions and allergic

responses which can be very harmful to their health but could have been prevented

One labeling requirement which should be in place but neither the United States nor

Canada include the use of genetically modified organisms in their food if there are any to

account for. This leaves many consumers in the dark on a possibly crucial piece of information

when deciding upon which food or brand they should endorse by putting their money into the

product. Several products are able to work around this by claiming to be organic and certified by

the Food and Drug Administration. This isnt always completely accurate because they require

that no more than 0.09% of the product be contaminated by genetically modified organisms

leading to uncertainty about that small percentage that could possibly be remaining in their food.

The foods that have been genetically modified are not proven to have any negative effects but

even so, consumers have a right to determine if they want to help fund GMOs by buying a

product and should therefore be able to get ahold of that information by looking at their nutrition

label on their food. The decision to not eat GMO contaminated foods is more of a moral one

because of religion and personal preference due to them believing that humans should not tamper

in the genetics of plants and that we dont know the effects they could potentially have in the

long run (Donsky , 2013).

The problem with obesity and the law. When the law tries to regulate its citizens

weight, the citizens get angry believing it is their right to eat what they want when they want.
PROPER NUTRITION SAVES LIVES 12
However, this is the case which makes all legislation and court decisions complicated. On one

end, those individuals want to eat as they wish but when it comes time to pay the consequences

in the form of mostly hospital bills along with some social issues as well, they dont want to and

try and blame others for their deteriorated condition. One such example of this is in a lawsuit

filed by Caesar Barber which turned into a class action lawsuit. The lawsuit was against

McDonald's and other fast food chains claiming that they had been the reason for his obesity and

the complications due to the condition. Another issue that the lawsuit addressed was in their

advertising claiming that they advertised their food as part of a healthy diet and that one could

eat it every day and remain healthy (Wilensky & O'Dell, 2013).

The lawsuit was ultimately thrown out on the grounds that McDonalds didnt have to

warn their consumers of the possible risk of medical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease,

high blood pressure, and elevated blood intake due to their foods containing many unhealthy

aspects such as high sodium, fat, cholesterol, and sugar. The average consumer knows that they

are eating unhealthy food and that McDonalds doesnt have to claim that. The court denied the

lawsuit as frivolous because the food was not found to be so extraordinarily unhealthy that their

intended use put consumers in danger.

Eight years later, the case was again denied because the judge stated that it didnt satisfy

Federal Rule 24(b)(3)s predominance requirement. This means that there wasnt any way to

directly attribute the consumption of fast food to their obesity because there wasnt any way to

test that theory. The theory would require proof that only the fast food contributed to their

obesity and not to any number of other possibilities or contributors such as any items bought

from the grocery store, genetic background, or lack of exercise (Mattis, 2004).
PROPER NUTRITION SAVES LIVES 13
This could have been avoided if there was information available to the consumer

highlighting all of the ingredients and other information dealing with nutrition, which in this case

would be fat content alongside sodium content. This information isnt required by fast food

restaurants in every state but it should be so consumers have a much stronger idea of what is

actually inside of their food, even if its the rough estimate or average. The nutrition label is there

for a very good reason and it should be mandatory to at least give basic information everywhere.

In the case New York State Restaurant Association v. New York City Board of Health,

this issue was addressed because nutrition labeling, or at least a release of the standard calories

per item, was made optional for all states to either enforce the requirement or not. New York did

make this information required and had a few opposers who were represented by New York State

Restaurant Association which ended in their defeat.

The New York Restaurant Association argued that they shouldnt have to give this

information due to it not being accurate even most of the time due to discrepancies and variation

on the part of the consumer. Their argument didnt hold up well and was shot down which meant

they had to create nutrition information such as a calorie content or average calorie content and

post in on their menu making it clear that what consumers are purchasing is what they actually

want (Farley, Caffarelli, Bassett, Silver, & Frieden, 2009).

Discussion

Consumers are always hungry for more information but when it comes to information

about nutrition, few are actually willing to listen. Throughout history, America, or any other

country, has never had a more detailed nutrition label but they still arent as complete as they

could be. Even the most minute information such as food color names or the names of other food

additives is very important for allergy reasons or even someones personal preference not to eat
PROPER NUTRITION SAVES LIVES 14
food that contains that. It isnt inexpensive to create a nutrition label because in order to know

everything about the food, it has to be analyzed in a lab to figure out exactly whats inside.

Because it requires money, fast food restaurants are willing to try and sneak past this

analysis for all of their food because many fast food restaurants have a lot of items, sometimes a

couple hundred. As the law progresses in this field, people will hopefully become more

knowledgeable and able to make better decisions with what they are already given at no extra

expense to them. Obesity is partially in consequence to either a consumer's ignorance on how to

read a nutrition label, or their lack of sight to actually read it and discern which foods are the

healthiest for them when compared to others.

The United States of America is ahead of the game for the most part when compared to

other countries even if it can use a couple improvements to increase the overall awareness of the

average consumer. Europe will continue to have a very similar nutrition label to ours which is a

good thing because obesity isnt only a problem in the United States, but also in other first world

countries such as France and Italy. Obesity also affects other lower class countries, however they

arent worried very much with whats in their food, only that they have food on their table or

available. Either way, obesity at an all-time high and the courts are at least trying to take action

without infringing on a consumers rights.

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