Editorial: High off the hog
The court had expressed its apprehensions in the backdrop of the recent reports alleging higher sugar content in Nestle’s baby food products sold in India, as well as in African and Latin American nations.
NEW DELHI: Earlier this week, the Supreme Court said that the Centre should activate itself against FMCG companies if they employ misleading advertisements about their products to target impressionable customers. The court had expressed its apprehensions in the backdrop of the recent reports alleging higher sugar content in Nestle’s baby food products sold in India, as well as in African and Latin American nations.
It might be recalled that just recently, the Centre had instructed e-commerce sites to desist from categorising any drinks and beverages as health drinks. The National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights later informed the government that the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) had not really set any standards for such a category. To add to the insult, most beverages categorised as health drinks were found to be high in sugar content.
It’s essential to contextualise the burden that such foods place on our well-being. A 2023 study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) estimates that in India, the prevalence of metabolic disorders is staggeringly high — with 11% of the population suffering from diabetes, 35% is afflicted by hypertension, while almost 40% suffer from abdominal obesity. This explosion of lifestyle diseases is a direct fallout of our dependence on unhealthy diets, which has been zeroed in as one of the single largest contributing factors for non-communicable diseases. Younger consumers are among the most vulnerable, vis-a-vis being targetted by the aggressive advertising employed by those manufacturing comfort foods. There’s a correlation between the profits earned by these FMCG companies and the wide nest cast by makers of junk food to rein in the youngest possible consumers.
As per the findings of an all-India survey done by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), 93% of children consumed packaged food, 68% lapped up packaged sweetened drinks more than once a week, and 53% ate these foods on a daily basis. Concurrently, the market for ultra-processed foods in India has grown at a CAGR of 13.37% between 2011 and 2021. Obviously, this spells bad news as we have now turned into a nation that is all set to squander away its demographic dividend on account of unhealthy dietary choices, and poor legislation to govern the makers of such processed foods.
Observers in the policy space have sought a comprehensive regulation to clearly define ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ to encompass all beverages and food products. In September 2022, the FSSAI had unveiled a draft notification on high fat, sugar, salt (HFSS) foods and the means of informing consumers against such foods ‘using front of the pack’ labelling. But the regulation is open-ended on the aspect of declaring the nutritional content on the front label, and is also partial to the assignment of ‘health rating stars’ as opposed to warning labels, which would have been more upfront.
Experts have also asked for the development of policies to facilitate positive subsidies for healthy foods, which include millets, fruits, vegetables and seasonal organic produce. This could help improve their availability, affordability, and thereby increase their consumption in rural and urban regions. The government think tank NITI Aayog’s annual report from 2021-22 also suggests that India should consider taking actions such as increasing the taxation on HFSS foods to tackle the junk epidemic.
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