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By Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist, Blogging at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Guest Blogger

Baby boomers are struggling with weight loss, with one in three not only being overweight but obese.

Having effective food labels would help boomers lose weight and select more nutritious products which promotes health.

But federal food regulators aren’t doing an effective job in seeing that accurate, informative food labels are provided for consumers, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. The report is called “Food Labeling: FDA Needs to Better Leverage Resources, Improve Oversight, and Effectively Use Available Data to Help Consumers Select Healthy Foods.”

The GAO report found that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has:

• Not adequately conducted label reviews when it inspects foreign food firms.
• Not done random sampling to test the accuracy of Nutrition Facts labels since the 1990s.
• Conducted only very limited non-random nutrition testing on products whose labels were suspected of being inaccurate.

“Americans rely on food labels for accurate nutrition information to improve their diets and reduce their risk of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes,” Bruce Silverglade, legal affairs director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in a statement about the report. “These disturbing findings basically show that the FDA is looking the other way while consumers are being misled.”

The center regularly files complaints with the FDA about food labeling claims, but little has been done by the agency, Silverglade said. See the center’s statement on food labels for examples.

The GAO report also recommended that the FDA work with other federal agencies and stakeholders to develop a simplified system that conveys overall nutritional quality to consumers.

In 2006, the center petitioned the FDA to develop a front-of-label symbol that would communicate nutritional value. It also has suggested an Institute of Medicine study to identify the best system of label symbols.

The FDA held a public hearing on the issue in 2007, but has not taken any further action, Silverglade said.