Weighing in on food quality at the grocery shelf level

摘要

Eight of 10 adults say that it is “somewhat to veryimportant to them” to eat healthy. Their inability,however, to understand and to decipher food labelinformation influences their final choice and may affect theirhealth and that of their families. In the United States, 110million adults have poor to basic numeracy skills meaningthey have difficulty using elementary math in daily life.1,2This equates to nearly one half of adults who may be challengedwith simple addition or comparison of two numberson labels of two similar foods. Yet only approximately 35%of adults believe what they see on food labels as “very credible”according to the American Dietetic Association, Nutritionand You Trends 2008 survey.3 In the same survey, whatis also alarming is that only 9% and 11% view informationfrom food manufacturers and grocery stores, respectively, as“very credible.”