HuffPost Italy has just published a commentary by Pietro Paganini on why nutrition labels alone cannot change eating habits. From Nutri-Score to Chilean warning labels, he calls for a new paradigm built on knowledge, innovation and personalised prevention.
Read the full article in Italian on HuffPost, or find the English translation below.
Key messages:
- Obesity is too complex for a label. Food labels may influence individual choices, but no front-of-pack symbol can address a challenge shaped by diet, lifestyle, education and the wider food environment.
- The Lancet study shows an association—not proof that warning labels caused it. It evaluates Chile’s entire policy package, reports only a modest effect and provides no evidence of long-term health benefits or a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis.
- The future of prevention is personalised, not one-size-fits-all. AI, wearables, digital nutrition education and metabolic monitoring can empower people to make informed choices and build healthier lifestyles. Laws change packaging; knowledge changes behaviour.
Food Labels: A Simple Answer to a Complex Health Challenge
Every political season has its symbol. In the fight against obesity, that symbol has for years been food labels. In Europe, the debate over Nutri-Score periodically resurfaces: a system that assigns foods a letter and a colour, from a green A to a red E, based on a nutritional algorithm.
In Latin America, by contrast, the reference model is Chile’s warning-label system: large black octagons that warn consumers when a product exceeds certain thresholds for sugar, sodium, saturated fat or calories.
The goal is noble and difficult to dispute: reducing obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease by guiding citizens towards products considered healthier. But good intentions alone are not enough to make good public policy.
The Lancet Study: What It Shows – and What It Cannot Prove
This is why a study recently published in The Lancet has attracted considerable attention and has already been presented by media outlets around the world as evidence of the effectiveness of the Chilean model. For the first time, the study does not simply examine changes in purchasing patterns or product reformulation, but attempts to link the law to a health outcome: a modest reduction in the likelihood of excess weight among children aged four to six.
This is an important scientific contribution. However, a careful reading of the study reveals a far more limited picture than the narrative surrounding it suggests, with no assessment of the policy’s potentially burdensome unintended consequences.
The study does not evaluate warning labels in isolation, but rather an entire law that also includes advertising restrictions, limits on the sale of certain products in schools and changes to the food environment. The authors themselves acknowledge that they cannot attribute the observed effects to any single component. In public communication, however, the result is often directly attributed to warning labels.
A Statistically Significant Effect – but is It Meaningful?
The magnitude of the effect also requires caution. The authors refer to previous studies suggesting that the first phase of the law was associated with an average reduction of just 16.4 kilocalories per person per day. The new study does not document weight loss measured in kilograms, nor does it demonstrate effects on diabetes, cardiovascular disease, mortality or long-term health.
This highlights an often-overlooked distinction: statistical significance does not automatically translate into public policy relevance.
A measure may produce a statistically detectable result without that result being sufficient to justify its economic, social and regulatory costs.
And this is precisely what the study lacks, as is often the case with nutrition policies, including those in Europe: a genuine cost-benefit analysis. The unintended consequences, distributional effects and impacts on freedom of choice, business competitiveness and international trade are not systematically assessed.
Europe’s Risk: Fragmented Labels and New Trade Barriers
The issue is particularly relevant for Europe today. The proliferation of different and discriminatory labelling systems, such as Nutri-Score, risks further fragmenting the internal market and creating new technical barriers to trade with Mercosur and Latin American countries.
This increases compliance costs and obstacles for exporters, without proportionate health benefits having been demonstrated.
Beyond Warning Labels: AI, Personalised Prevention and Smarter Public Health
The question, therefore, is not whether warning labels have some effect. It is whether they represent the best way to address one of the greatest public health challenges of our time without generating economic, trade and social consequences that outweigh the benefits achieved.
Today, we also have tools that did not exist ten years ago: artificial intelligence, wearable devices, personalised prevention, digital nutrition education, metabolic health monitoring and targeted physical activity programmes. The Mediterranean diet also reminds us that health does not depend on a label or a single nutrient, but on the overall balance of our lifestyle.
Perhaps the time has come to change the paradigm. True innovation does not mean adding another label to a package, but empowering every citizen to understand, choose and build their own path to health.
Because laws can change packaging. Knowledge changes behaviour.