In Obesity Battle, FDA Weighs Update to Serving Sizes

by Jennifer Lawinski, Posted Feb 8th 2010 @ 1:30PM

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Would you still eat six Double Stuf Oreos if you knew that you had just eaten three servings worth?

In an effort to help Americans make healthier food choices, the FDA wants serving sizes on foods like ice cream, breakfast cereals, chips and cookies to reflect how much people actually eat, the New York Times reported.

"If you put on a meaningful portion size, it would scare a lot of people," Barry Popkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina, told the Times. "They would see, 'I'm going to get 300 calories from that, or 500 calories'."

A typical one-ounce serving of chips, for example, has about 150 calories. However, most consumers don't realize that could be as few as six Tostitos Hint of Lime chips, the Times reported. A 14-ounce microwaveable bowl of Healthy Choice soup contains almost two servings.

"Ultimately, the purpose of nutrition labeling is to help consumers make healthier choices, make improvements in their diet, and we want to make sure we achieve that goal," Barbara O. Schneeman, director of the F.D.A. office that oversees nutrition labels, told the Times.

"We are actively looking at serving size and evaluating what steps we need to take."

[via New York Times]

Filed Under: Health & Medical
Tags: fda, fda serving sizes, fda updates serving sizes, serving sizes

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-08-2010 @3:51PM Michael Schmitt said... I don't think that this is going to change anything.

Those that USE the nutrition labeling are already interested in their health and use the information in the Nutrition Facts accordingly.

Those that don't care... don't care.

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act was meant to reduce the incidence of obesity because it was thought that once people knew how many calories they are ingesting, people would make "better choices" and moderate their intake of high calorie foods.

It hasn't worked; obesity rates have continued to increase since the legislation was enacted in 1990.

This "addition" to the NLEA isn't going to work either.
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2-08-2010 @4:06PM belg4mit said... About bloody time. they should also harmonize sizes across a category, or at least within a manufacturer. A 12 ounce can of soda is one serving, but a 20 ounce bottle of soda (an unnecessary, and no longer supreme, supersizing of the original 16 ounce) is 2.5 8 ounce servings.
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2-08-2010 @5:50PM david e said... americans don't read packages for serving sizes, they see packages AS serving sizes. how many decades did people drink 12 and 20 oz. sodas thinking they were single-serving sizes because that's how they came out of the vending machines? how many people STILL see a pint of ice cream as single-serving? until people can actually see foods packages "true" single serving fo comparison they don't really car what the fda says on the package.
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